Yosemite May-June 2010 «

We had an awesome visit to Yosemite National Park in late May & early June, thanks to our gracious host Steve Bumgardner, aka “Yosemite Steve”: http://twitter.com/YosemiteSteve

The trip started with a real bang, literally, during the long drive from Palm Springs to Yosemite, when one of the tires on our 30-foot Toyhauler trailer blew out.

I actually drove like 20 miles on this thing without realizing it!

Thankfully, AAA sent someone out to fix it. After the tire blowout, my trailer brakes went out right when we crossed into Yosemite. I had to ride 1st and 2nd gears all the way into Yosemite Valley Next up, I had to maneuver the “Death Star” trailer through some crazy obstacles to get it parked at the Lower Pines campground in Yosemite Valley.

The Force was strong with me that day!

So after all of that nonsense, we finally got down to some filming!

Rainbows near El Cap. That's the Canon 70-200mm

Filming the photographers who flock to Tunnel View at Yosemite

Yosemite Steve tries his hand on the Red MX camera, with Chris M pulling iris

A pretty epic little waterfall scene we shot on Red

Chris M prepping gear at our camp

Steve supervises another waterfall shoot

Timelapsing the crowds at Tunnel View, with help from Edie Howe and Jeff Sullivan

When the weather got iffy, we went to Plan B: drinking lots of beer. Drew Walker, Tony Rowell, Steve Bumgardner's eyes and hat

Filming at Glacier Point with Chris M, Steve and Drew. We had an epic night up there, with 6 Canon cameras rocking various astro timelapses until 4AM

Memorial Day weekend madness. The unwashed masses had arrived!

Wimps! Girly men!

Red MX frame-grab of girl riding a bike through a meadow

One of the main goals of this early-summer trip was to film “Moonbows” on the waterfalls at Yosemite, which can mainly be done in May and June. We hooked up with well-known Flickr photographer and location expert Jeff Sullivan for several nights of attempting to capture these elusive moonbows. It was a lot of fun.

Moonbow, shot on Canon 70-200mm f/2.8

As cool as the moonbows were, probably the highlight of the Yosemite trip for me was the afternoon we spent filming wild bears in the meadows. All credit goes to Tony Rowell (http://www.tonyrowell.com), who spotted the bears and radioed us: “We got bears!…. turn around!” It was an incredible rush — a natural high — being out so close to the bears and filming them.