Clearing Spring Snow Storm, Tunnel View, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park
Canon 1DsMKII, 24-70mmL @f/20, 1/5th second, 100 ISO, Singh-Ray Neutral Polarizer
March 2, 2006
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Have you ever been driving along when a song comes on the radio and stops you (not literally) in your tracks? Well, for me, sometimes images can do the same. One of my many projects for this summer is to edit through all of my old images that still reside on DVDs. This morning, I came across a series of images I made from Yosemite’s Tunnel View that I would consider life-altering. The start of a wonderful 7-year friendship and a career-altering moment all rolled up in a incredible clearing storm photo captured at Yosemite’s famed Tunnel View.

Let the Story Begin

Back on March 1, 2006, I had noticed that a late-spring snowstorm was barreling towards the southern Sierra range, with Yosemite National Park dead in its tracks. I took this as an opportunity to get into the park and allow the storm to pass over me. That morning, I drove to the Valley (about 3 hours from my house) and spent the day shooting under mist and some light rain. Here in California, warmer air usually accompanies an approaching front with the cooler air behind the system. The following day, March 2, the storm pounded the Valley and the rain had turned to snow overnight. Howling winds also arrived, which can prove dangerous with heavy snow clinging to tree limbs. By the time afternoon rolled around, Highways 41 (the Park’s southern entrance) and 120 (the Park’s northern entrance) were closed due to multiple fallen trees and limbs. The only entrance still precariously open was Highway 140 (which runs through the Merced River Valley). I was staying at the Yosemite View Lodge (located alongside Highway 140 just outside the entrance to the Park). The snow level had dipped to 1500 feet and rangers were trying to get the remaining visitors out of the park.

During the day, I kept driving the loop (Northside and Southside Drive) looking for photo ops as conditions were changing by the minute. As the snow pounded the Valley, scenes would change inside of 30-minutes. I kept noticing another photographer who was about my age and we at one point kidded that we were the only two nuts left in the park. I thought to myself at one point, “now there’s a guy as crazy as me, he must be pretty passionate about his photography.” Little did I know how passionate!

After about my sixth loop, a park ranger stopped me. It was about 3:30pm and I had been listening to a Bay Area news channel. They were reporting that this “fast-moving” storm had cleared San Francisco and sunny skies were emerging. I had spent many years living in the Sierra when I was younger. I had been chasing my dream of making the US Ski team and in the process, had become quite adept at reading weather patterns and how they affected the Sierra Mountain Range. I worked some quick math in my head and felt I had a better-than-average chance of catching a clearing storm from Tunnel View if I could wait-out the storm. The ranger had other ideas. I know his job was to think safety first, and he strongly suggested that I hightail it back to my hotel and forget about photography. “It will be great in the morning when you come back,” he said. To which I confidently replied, “I think this storm will break within the next two hours!” When I told him that I had been monitoring the storm on the radio, he said that I was wrong and that this storm was forecast to go through the night. I could see that I wasn’t going to win that argument, so I kindly thanked him and proceeded towards the park’s exit along Northside Drive.

A Message From a Higher Power

I made a quick stop at the famed Valley View location, but the clouds had sunk into the Valley and I could not see more than 50 yards out. At that point, I seriously thought of heeding the ranger’s advice and calling it a day. As I pulled away, there is a short stretch of road before I would have to make a quick decision: either proceed out of the park, or turn left over the Pohono Bridge and drive to Tunnel View. As I crept along contemplating my decision, a bolt of sunlight suddenly shafted through the trees. I had just finished a prayer in which I asked God what to do (I’m not making this up). Obviously, my answer was immediate and I bolted to the Tunnel View parking lot.

Upon arriving, I noticed a ranger (sitting in his truck) and four shadowy figures with tripods covered in snow. I tapped on the window of the truck and asked the ranger if I was allowed to be there. Unlike his partner, he said that legally he could not kick me out and also added that if the storm was to break, I would be in for a huge treat (he must have been a photographer).

I grabbed my gear and headed towards the shadowy figures. Unsurprisingly, one of the snow-covered photographers was the gentleman I had bumped into during my earlier stops. “We meet again,” I joked. He shook my hand and introduced himself as Gary Hart. Over the course of the next 90 minutes, we talked about a lot of subjects and quickly found out we had many similar interests: from our mutual love of sports to our love of photography. Our wife’s even had the same birthday (which was yesterday – Happy Birthday Beri and Sonya)! We found out we were also the same age (Gary only a couple months older than me). Gary had been in the tech world and had quit cold turkey to make a living as a landscape photographer. I, on the other hand, had already been in the business for many years but as a sports photographer. I was hoping to make the transition into landscape but was scrambling to figure out a path. Somewhere during the course of the conversation, Gary mentioned that he was going to start teaching photo workshops and was looking for and assistant instructor. He wanted to know if I was interested and I immediately said “yes!”

Let the Show Begin

One of the interests we both had was weather. We had both joked that if we weren’t photographers, we would possibly had become meteorologists. I told Gary that I had been tracking this storm (we did not have smart phone with doppler apps back then) and through my experience of living in the mountains, felt we had a better-than-average chance of getting a clearing storm at sunset. I told him about the shaft of sunlight and he said he witnessed it from Tunnel View. I kept the prayer part to myself only later to find out that Gary’s dad was a minister. Looking back, I think Gary’s dad may have had a thing or two to do with the sent message.

There were three other photographers who hung out and joined in the conversation. As I recall, one may have given up, but Gary and I were thoroughly committed to staying through sunset time. As that time neared, we began to notice a break in the clouds above. This is when the adrenaline started to kick in. I quickly forgot about how cold and wet I was got to work making images. Then, the mist in the Valley parted and the scene you see here opened up in front of us. I was speechless. I remember thinking to myself, “come on sky, catch some color.”

A Very Surreal Moment

I have never before, or since, been at Tunnel View feeling as if I had the location to myself. It just doesn’t work that way. Millions of photographers pass this way every year; yet, here was this amazing clearing storm scene, and I was one of only a handful of people on earth with a front-row seat. Persistence pays off, but this was over-the-top! Quietness has a sound all to itself. All I heard over the next 20 minutes was clicking shutters and whispers of, “I can’t believe this!” Surreal is the best adjective I can come up with. The color had arrived and matched this incredible scene. Either one of the two would have been enough for a great image, but to have them both together was almost a miracle – what are the odds with the timing of all this, I thought to myself?

When it was over, I not only had some incredible images, but looking back, I more importantly had a new friend and the start of a new career in the making as a landscape photographer.

From Then Until Now

Well, as the saying goes, the rest is history! Gary did follow through, and as promised, contacted me to help with his first (of many) Yosemite workshops. I remember saying to him, “no contracts, I’ll take this one at a time.” We worked quite a bit together those first couple of years and garnered a following of many photographers we now call “good friends.” I even credit Gary with giving me the confidence to step-off and start my own workshops (which I did with a Spring Big Sur workshop in 2007). Over the ensuing years, we have both built our workshop business’s to the point that we can only co-teach a handful of workshops per year. In 2013, we will be together 8 times (I’ll help Gary on three of his, and vice-versa, and we will co-teach our first venture this August at the Grand Canyon – 2 Monsoon workshops).

More importantly to me, our friendship continues to grow. As Joe Walsh once said of the Eagles, “we are a couple of creative alphas and that can lead to disagreements,”  but overall, the friendship (and partnership) has survived. We are two completely different photographers in our approach and processing, but end up liking the same images by-and-large. For our students, we both believe that this is invaluable as they learn there is no single way to accomplish making an image. Moreover, we are both heavily influenced by the late Galen Rowell and consider his classic book, Mountain Light, our photographic bible.

In the Near Future

The month of July is usually our downtime. We also joke that we are not getting any younger. I’m off in a couple weeks to have my left knee partially replaced and Gary is dealing with replacing his front teeth (which were knocked-out during a softball game – the ump forgot to duck)! We’ll both be on the mend in time for the Grand Canyon and look forward to the 11-plus hour drive from California – we’ll have a lot of stories to swap as the XM radio is tuned to Classic Rock! As they say in NASCAR, we are both just pulling in for a short pit stop – we’ll be back out on the track very soon!

2013 Photo Workshops

1st Annual Grand Canyon Monsoon and Lightning Photo Workshop – August 19 – 23, 2013 (co-taught with Gary Hart) (WORKSHOP SOLD OUT :: WAITING LIST ONLY)

2nd Annual Fall Color in Grand Teton National Park – September 28 – October 2, 2013 (WORKSHOP SOLD OUT :: WAITING LIST ONLY)

2nd Annual Fall Color in Grand Teton National Park – October 2 – October 6, 2013 (WORKSHOP SOLD OUT :: WAITING LIST ONLY)

5th Annual Arches/Canyonlands National Parks – Full Moon Over Red Rock, Arches and Canyons – October 15-19, 2013 (Hurry – Only (1) Spot Remaining)

3rd Annual Bryce/Zion National Parks – Hoodoos and Fall Color – November 4-8, 2013 (WORKSHOP SOLD OUT :: WAITING LIST ONLY)

2014 Photo Workshops

5th Annual Magic Light, Moonlight, and Pfeiffer Arch Workshop – Winter in Big Sur and the Monterey Peninsula – January 15-18, 2014

6th Annual Northern Arizona Workshop – Grand Canyon (full moon), Page (Horseshoe Bend and Upper Antelope Canyon) and Sedona – March 14-18, 2014 (Only 7 spots remaining)

7th Annual Springtime in Big Sur and the Monterey Peninsula – Wildflowers, Misty Fog and Headland Color – April 14-17, 2014

5th Annual Kauai Workshop – Garden Isle and Tropical Paradise – June 20-24, 2014 (early-bird signup discount  – contact me for details!)

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