Right: Flourishing photographers. High Sierra Mountains, California.
[Published inFebruary 1987
Modern
Photography Magazine. 
Photographs Copyright 1983-2000 by Tom
Dempsey.
Page last updated March 12, 2008.
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The Sierra Nevada:
The California mountain range known as the Sierra Nevada stretches 400
miles (650
km), from
Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south. "The
Sierras" are bounded on the west by California's Central Valley, and on
the east by
the Great Basin Desert.
History: The earliest identified inhabitants of the
Sierra Nevada were the Paiute tribe on the east side, and the
Valley
and Sierra Miwok on the west side. The Miwok called these mountains Kayopha,
or "The Sky and the Peaks that touch it". In 1776, Padre Pedro Font on
the second de Anza expedition saw distant mountains to the east, and
named them the Sierra Nevada, which means "snowy
range" in Spanish. (The "first" Sierra Nevada is in the region of
Andalusia, which contains the highest point of continental Spain.)
Preservationist John Muir (1838 – 1914) fell in love with what he
aptly called the "Range of Light", a nickname
quoted by conservationists and artists to this day.
Left:
Cathedral Peak reflected in lake, Yosemite
National Park.
Cathedral Peak is the highest summit of the Cathedral
Range, in
the south-central portion of Yosemite National Park in Tuolumne County,
California. The range is an offshoot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The sharp cathedral-shaped top of the peak was left uneroded as
Pleistocene glaciers scraped its flanks smooth.
The west peak (shown on left) of Cathedral Peak is called
Eichorn Pinnacle, after Jules Eichorn, who first ascended a route
(difficulty = YDS 5.4 ) in 1931.
Indian Paintbrush. High Sierra Mountains, California.
Left: Weathered wood siding in the gold mining ghost town of Bodie.
Bodie State Historic Park, California.
Snow-covered branches in Northern California winter.
Left: Yosemite Falls plunges 2425 feet (one of the world's highest
waterfalls), in Yosemite National Park. In 1984, UNESCO listed Yosemite
National Park as a World Heritage Area.
Below right: Hiking cross-country beneath Virginia Peak, in the
back-country
of Yosemite National Park, in the High Sierra Nevada Mountains. [Published in March/April
2003 Sierra Magazine, Sierra Club Outings.]
Below right: California poppies.
Left: Family backpacking in the High Sierra.
Yosemite National Park. My nephew making ripples in
Summit Lake, High Sierra.
Left: Lundy Canyon hikers, yellow aspen, High Sierra, California.
Above right: Yosemite Falls plunges 2425 feet (in two stages) in Yosemite National Park.
Left: High Sierra: Mt. Mendell (13,691) & Darwin Canyon, Kings
Canyon NP. [Published in Jan./Feb. 2000 Sierra
Magazine,
Sierra Club Outings.]
High Sierra: Near Italy Pass. [Published
in March/April 2000 Sierra
Magazine, Sierra Club Outings.]
California Deserts:
Left: Badlands in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
Left: Blooming barrel cactus, Anza-Borrego
Desert State Park.
Below right: My parents' camper drives through an ocatillo forest
in bloom.
Anza-Borrego
Desert State Park, California.
Below right: Eureka Sand Dunes, near Death Valley, California.
Above: Anza-Borrego Desert State Park: This
coastal fishhook cactus (Mammillaria
dioica) is a member of the Ferocactus
family, meaning fierce cactus. Armed with heavy spines, it usually
blooms April through June. It
also grows in Baja California.
Even the experts have had trouble coming to agreement for the common
and Latin names for the hundreds of species of cacti, which are all
native to the Americas. The cactus in this image most likely has the
common name California Fishhook or Coastal Fishhook cactus (and its
most
likely Latin name is Mammillaria dioica). Its Genus name Mammillaria
comes from the Latin for "nipple", because the areolas (structures
carrying the spines) are carried by nipple like structures instead of
being organized in ribs like many other cacti. This fishhook cactus is
found in the Sonoran Desert from southeastern California to western
Texas to northern Mexico. Often found growing under bushes, it grows in
dry, gravely desert slopes, below 4,500 feet. I photographed this
cactus in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California in 1994.
Left: Eureka Sand Dunes, near Death Valley, California.
Below right: a small green spider lurks in a datura blossom, in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.
This green spider is perfectly camouflaged to hide in the center
of this datura flower blossom. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park,
California.
Copyright 1983-2000 by Tom
Dempsey. Photographs may not be copied without permission. Buy
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