Wasatch Mountain Winter

I had been dying to get out and take some photographs but the weather lately has been awful. There’s been little new snowfall, smog in the lower valleys, and the skies have alternated between gray or cloudless blue. Today, however, that all changed with a bunch of new snow overnight and throughout the morning. As the storm front moved through the sun popped out, causing all that new snow to sparkle, and, luck of all luck, there were still quite a few clouds out.

As I was clearing the driveway for the second time I noticed there were bunches of clouds billowing around the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains so I threw the camera gear into the Land Cruiser and headed up into the mountains. None of the nearby locations were terribly inspiring but I figured I’d give them a shot anyway. It’s been too long since I’ve gotten a decent landscape shot.

I had to drive a bit on an unpaved and unplowed road (the snow was up to the bottom of the door on the Land Cruiser), and then hike a bit in the deep snow, but I found a pretty decent spot with some decent foreground. I took several shots at different angles but settled on the one below. The photo doesn’t wow me but it’s decent enough to put on the site. Maybe it’ll grow on me.

One of the most difficult things about this shot was focusing on something at the hyperfocal distance. I had to focus on something about seven feet out in order to get 3.5 feet to infinity in focus. That turned out to be difficult to do with blinding snow destroying my eyes (snow is hard to focus on) but I was able to get the focus correct for the shot. You can’t check the LCD screen for sharpness in such bright light, making hyperfocal distance cards a must-have.