From Southwest Road Trip to Stargazing in Yosemite With a Tripod
When I’m traveling, I have this awful habit of trying to cram too many things into a single trip. It’s a combination of FOMO and genuinely having some unusual hobbies, like standing out in the middle of the night taking pictures of the stars or the northern lights. So naturally, I insisted on lugging my tripod on the road trip Elizabeth and I took from New Mexico to California.
Our main goals were to see family and go hiking, but I not so secretly hoped to photograph the core of the Milky Way while in the lower 48. I was excited to stargaze in the warmth, a welcome change from chasing the aurora borealis back home in Alaska. I also had an old 105mm prime lens that my friend Zak had gifted me, and with it I hoped to capture both my usual wide angle astrophotos but also a zoomed-in shot of the core of the Milky Way Galaxy.
The trip began with Santa Fe’s city lights and busy days hiking with Nathaniel. We got invited to the Taos Pow Wow, an annual intertribal Native American tradition, which meant skipping stargazing in New Mexico entirely.
Thunderstorms and cloudy skies joined us while visiting the Grand Canyon and an early morning to explore Antelope Canyon kept us on the go. We had stunning weather in Arizona packing our days with hikes between long drives and an early morning sunrise enroute to Grand Staircase-Escalante. Up next was Joshua Tree, world-renowned for its night skies.
Unfortunately Joshua Tree yielded unrelenting heat with overnight temperatures as high as 114°F! The polar opposite of our frigid nights combined with travel exhaustion put stargazing on hold yet again. I didn’t fret, we had a few days with family in Santa Barbara before camping in Sequoia and Yosemite. I held out hope for stars in California’s national parks.
Walking among the giant sequoia trees was incredible but clouds and tree canopies kept us from stargazing at night. Probably for the best since we crammed in a 14-mile hike to Pear Lake and needed our sleep.
Stargazing in Yosemite: The Plan
Tuolumne Meadows would be perfect for astrophotography. We worked it all out with our friend Jack, a Yosemite SAR ranger, and confirmed with the ranger issuing our backcountry permit. We spent our first night in Yosemite at the SAR site listening to wild mountaineering stories. Everyone agreed we would get awesome night skies from our tent in Tuolumne with two nights of backpacking.
Elizabeth and I have backpacked many times together in Alaska, from Kesugi Ridge to the Bomber Traverse and Grewingk Glacier dodging black bears and downed trees. But Yosemite was going to be our first time backpacking together outside of Alaska.
Backpacking Tuolumne Meadows — The Mosquito Problem
We parked, hitchhiked a few miles to our trailhead, and got on the trail in the afternoon. We’d been warned about mosquitoes but we donned headnets and pushed on with our Alaskan nerves. I couldn’t help but laugh as they bit every inch of our legs. Shorts were a poor choice.
It wasn’t even dark when we started considering setting up camp just to escape the bugs. Every pause was an opportunity for the mosquitoes to swarm. These were worse than anything either of us had experienced. We tried a few times to set up the tent but couldn’t even get far enough to unzip our packs before we were eaten alive. Uncomfortable doesn’t even come close to describing it.
We’d spent the last two weeks on the road, a different place every night. We were excited for a backpacking trip, for a chance to relax in nature and camp out. But this wasn’t bringing us any joy. Neither of us wanted to admit it but we both wanted to turn back. We still had an hour of sunlight, one look at each other and we agreed to turn around, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Hiking back, the feeling of defeat arose with the realization it was our first time abandoning a backpacking trip.
Tioga Pass: Yosemite Stargazing at 9,943 Feet
Back at the car and mildly deflated, I scoured park maps, Google Maps and iOverlander for places we could car camp. There was one just outside the eastern edge of Yosemite. We’d have to drive through Tioga Pass to get there, a note said 9,943 feet which would be perfect for stargazing!
I pulled over at the top of the pass and stepped out of the car, immediately feeling the cool air void of mosquitoes. The starry sky above snapped me back to reality. Beauty in the stars above – the Milky Way! Faint, but definitely there. I set up for some astrophotography and clambered back into the car to don another layer. The stars could wait a moment.
Astrophotography in Yosemite: The Milky Way Core
Walking back to my tripod I could already tell my eyes were adjusting to the darkness. More stars appeared in every direction, and the Milky Way more defined, brighter even. Many more stars than I could see came out in each photo than I expected and there was the Milky Way!
Elizabeth joined me with an extra layer and we looked for shooting stars in between camera shutters. Satellites and planes stitched themselves between it all, bringing a moment of pause, without the grace of a shooting star. No matter, shooting stars did appear and it was a beautiful night.
A moment later, I noticed less air traffic and decided the wide-angle had done its job. Time to try out the zoomed in 105mm 1.8 prime lens. I aimed right at the core of the Milky Way Galaxy as it rose above the mountains.
Success!
We ended our trip with an extra night staying with family in San Francisco. Dodging the mosquitoes opened up a day to drive out to Point Reyes National Seashore where we saw elephant seals, elk and beautiful coastline!
