Sierra Night

High up in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, Yosemite is hours away from any significant source of light pollution. I knew that during the night I would see a show of stars like no other I had ever seen before. I made my half-hour long drive up Glacier Point Road long before sunset to ensure I could claim the spot I wanted before other star gazers got there. As the sun dipped behind the granite mountains in the west, the stars began to shine. The longer I waited the more brilliant the small dots in the sky became. Looking east toward Half Dome there were so many stars that it was difficult to even focus on a single point, the all seemed to blend together in a bright mixture of the Milky Way. As I made my exposures of the sheer face of Half Dome, I started to notice small lights making their way up it. The head lamps of rock climbers had gone un-noticed to me while I was focusing on the stars. Even in the freezing cold temperatures, the climbers continued up the mountain at midnight. They were just a couple more lights among the millions of others above them.

By: Kaz Canning