I’ve been planning all summer to get out for a night or two of Milky Way photography again. I really enjoyed the workshop in Arches last spring, and wanted to see if I could improve upon my composition and post-processing skills with a new set of photographs.
Unfortunately, I never seemed to be free to travel during the new moon, or I always seemed to be too tired for late evening photography when I was in dark sky locations like Sequoia National Park. The next thing I knew, it was August – I was running out of time. I decided when I returned from Colorado that I was going to find a reasonable place to go on the 10th, which was the exact date for the new moon. The question was….where to go. I wanted to get a reasonably interesting landscape, maybe not as spectacular as Arches, but perhaps with a nice lake or mountains for the foreground. Oh yeah, and I really did not want to drive very far, requiring camping or a long drive back home at 3AM.
I first headed up US-50 to check out Wrights Lake in the Sierra, hoping the Milky Way would be in a position to reflect off the lake. I also wanted to check out Dark Lake, a short drive north of Wrights, which seemed promising in terms of location. I did this during the day, in case you were wondering – I have an application, PhotoPills, which magically shows the position of planets, stars or the Milky Way, at any location, at any date and time. Pretty amazing. You hold up your phone in the direction you would be photographing from, and the application superimposes for example, the Milky Way as it would appear at that time. You can than swipe to change the time, and see how that astronomical feature would appear.
Photophills – band across the middle is the Milky Way
Wrights Lake is a relatively short drive from where I live – about a 90 minute drive, with the last bit on a rough but paved road. It is a state recreation area – nice place for kayaking and paddleboarding with camping spots and picnic tables which can be reserved ahead of time. I was hoping to find a picnic spot on the north shore of the recreation part of the lake, so that I would have a clear view of the sky looking South. After parking the car, I hiked along the path, trying my best to avoid a picnic group with very large mean looking dogs, and found what appeared to be a good spot to set up my tripod on the 10th. I pulled out my phone, brought up the PhotoPills application and found out that I really needed to be on the East shore of the lake which is all private property. Bummer.
Dark Lake – wish I had one of the houses
I moved on to the other location, Dark Lake, which is a short drive down a very narrow, one lane road. Beautiful spot but almost all of the shoreline is private property. The view would have been very limited from the one spot I could shoot from. Scratch Dark Lake from the list. I really did not feel like negotiating that road at midnight, and then taking the long road back to the highway.
My next, and only other choice was along a road heading up to the Ice House Reservoir, about 14 miles west of where I was. This spot, named the Ice House Observation Point 1, was listed as one of the best dark sky locations in the Sacramento region, and appears to be a favorite for star gazers. It was on the way back home along US-50, but I had nothing better to do the next few days, and saved the excitement for later in the week. I lead a very exciting life these days. I had seen photos of this site and it did not appear to be too photogenic. There was a concrete divider wall at the start of the field, which limited parking, and what looked like a rusted crane in the middle of the field. Meh. The view to the south was not as restricted horizontally as Wrights Lake, but there was still the problem that much of the Milky Way would be blocked. But still, it was better than Wrights Lake. I was not overly thrilled with the limited parking and rusting crane, so I headed down to the second observation point, which for some reason, was indicated as closed on Google Maps. This turned out to be a better choice – a very large, open field, no wall, unlimited space for parking, and no rusting crane. This spot was also a on a small side road, so there would be less road traffic. Bright headlights and long exposure astrophotography do not work well together.
Point 1 – rusted crane on the leftPoint 2 – gravel piles, but no crane. No snakes either
OK, let’s move on and fast forward to the evening of the 10th. Sunset started around 7:30, with full darkness around 9 or so. I planned to get to the observation point by 7:30’ish so I could find a good spot to set the tripod, get my camp chair out, and settle in to wait for the stars to appear.
Twilight…waiting for stars
As expected, I was the only one there. Cool. Unless a bear shows up. After finding my spot, another car pulled up, and out came four older guys (younger than me), who proceeded to wander off into the bushes, looking for snakes. Seriously. I asked what types and what would they do if they found some. It turns out they are reptile collectors, and used to come up to this site years back, when the highway department maintained a road salt shed on the open space. A funny group of guys….no snakes though, so they went off to search another area. That was the last car I saw that evening until I left.
OK, enough blathering about reptiles and salt sheds. I started shooting once the first star appeared to the west, looking towards the glow of Sacramento. Pretty soon, I could make out the Milky Way, and soon after, it was dark enough to make out what appeared to be a bright section, possibly the core. As the sky became completely dark, by 9:45, the sky was beautiful – I did see a few meteors, but I think the Perseids was to the North, and I was focused more on the Milky Way as it moved from SE to SW across the horizon. I did snap a few star photos to the North for the fun of it – the Big Dipper was really clear. I also saw some Starlink satellites pass by to the North as well – never seen them before.
The chair came in handy in the dark – once I turned off my head lamp, the only light was from the camera screen. Kind of creepy.
I shot around 60 photos, a low record for me, experimenting with various setting on the camera. Something I never had a chance to during the Arches workshop. I also just sat back in my camp rocking chair and stared at the sky a lot. Very relaxing, and incredibly quiet. It was cool enough to wear a down sweater, so there were no mosquitoes. Or snakes. Or bears. About 11:15, the Milky Way was fading as it neared the glow in the West from Sacramento, so I decided to start the drive home. There were quite a few cars parked at the main observation point – I think I made the right choice.
And finally, here’s the best of the batch – it takes a while to edit them. I may add a few more. My expectations had been pretty low for this outing, so I’m not too disappointed in the results. It was good practice, and I enjoyed sitting out in the dark, watching the Milky Way slide by – beats sitting at home alone watching TV.
Best of the batch – there’s a meteor track in the middle of the Milky Way
I get one more shot at night photography in September, when I meet some friends at Yosemite Park. I’m getting there a day before my friends, which happens to be the new moon. I intend to head up to Glacier Point, which I believe is one of the best places for night photography. We are staying close to the tunnel view, so I might be able to try that one out as well.
Two more weeks and I’ll be in Kodiak Alaska. I’d better get back to training. I have to be faster than one person in the group.
About a year ago, I was sitting around in my house, wondering what I was going to do the rest of the summer after getting what turned out to be a significant mis-diagnosis which was forcing me to remain close to home. I started looking at things to do within a one day drive from home, and discovered that there were a bunch of public caverns along the Sierra foothills, some within a few hours of my house. Many years ago (like about 50), I had done some serious spelunking in the very wet caves in Indiana – I have no interest in crawling around in narrow, muddy passages anymore, but walking around on guided tours through a well lit cavern sounded like a non-destructive, civilized adventure.
California actually has many hundreds of caverns – there’s a lot of limestone here. But, very few have been developed into tourist attractions, where you don’t have to slide down ropes or crawl in the mud, with lighting provided by a headlamp. In fact, there are only eight of them. There are other cave-like features which are open to the public – Pinnacles National Park has a boulder filled slot canyon they call a cave (it’s not), and there are a lot of lava tubes in various locations. These are sort of caves – empty space left when the lava stopped flowing, leaving behind some long tubes. Sort of like subway tunnels with very sharp rocks. I may visit a few of these someday. But real caverns are formed in limestone, by water which dissolves the rock and creates all kinds of cool formations. I’m about to let my inner geologist loose..down boy, down.
So last summer, I started my cavern-a-week tour, and managed to get through six of them before winter set in. I’ve documented all of these in previous blog entries. The most interesting one to me was Moaning Cavern, down by Angels Camp. The formations were not very exciting, but the attraction was the old WWI battleship mast, about 8 stories of circular steps, that you negotiate to get down to the huge chamber (and back up again). All the other ones were interesting, but quite frankly, after 3 or 4 of these tours, you’ve pretty much seen every type of formation – stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, cave bacon…some are nicer than others, but there’s just not that much different from cavern to cavern other than the length of the tour, how well lit the tour is, and how entertaining the tour guides are. I did like the light show at the end of the Lake Shasta Cavern tour. That was different. The one in Murphy’s was probably the most boring, but at least it was close to that great ice cream shop in town.
I finished off last year with with Mitchell Cavern, out in the Mojave Desert. That was an insane drive to get there for a 45 minute tour. Yeah, I’m a bit obsessive about things like this. I also did a real touristy cavern in Colorado as well, before my Manitou Incline climb. I’m surprised I have not started digging holes in my backyard to crawl into. Very gnome-like. I’m getting off track again.
The two caverns that I missed were in National Parks – Boyden Cavern in Kings Canyon I somehow missed, and Crystal Cavern in Sequoia National Park closed pretty early for the season. My plans were to hit them early this season if possible. The first week of June is perfect, since I’m leaving for Iceland later in the month (multiple lava caves on this trip!).
I am starting this post after driving down to the hotel in Fresno that I stayed in last year on the way back from my trip to Mojave. I like this place (Doubletree). Aside from the chocolate chip cookies, it’s a good jump off to the National Parks, only an hour or so drive to Boyden Cavern. I’ll be staying in the park one night before hitting Crystal Cavern, then back to the Doubletree when I head back home. I wish that I could have scheduled this during a new moon – Sequoia is an official dark sky location, and it would have been nice to get the Milky Way from someplace like Moro Rock. Some other time (or lifetime).
As for the trophy photo (AI of course), I think the effort I’ve made deserves some sort of recognition. Or maybe a free session or two with a shrink.
Boyden Cavern (and some waterfalls)
June 2nd, 2026
I’ll start out by saying that this was the least interesting of the caverns I’ve visited this past year – sort of sets the tone for this portion of the blog post. The drive from the hotel in Fresno is not far from a distance perspective (only 75 miles), but once you get into the national park, the road is two lanes with sharp, hairpin curves, long climbs up to 7000’, slow drivers (who at least use the turn outs), and road construction to make it even more interesting. Still, I made it to Boyden Cavern almost 2 hours before my scheduled time. I had planned to check a few photo ops down the road, but stopped at the cavern for a pit stop, then checked to see if I could switch to an earlier group. No problem. I had to rush to change shoes and grab my camera, but made it with minutes to spare.
The entrance to the cavern is up a relatively short, but very steep trail starting from the gift shop. It was enough to get the heart beating fast for sure. The group I was with was from Taiwan, with their own guide/interpreter. Anything our cave guide said then had to be repeated in Taiwanese. Kind of slowed things down.
As I mentioned previously, once you’ve been to a half-dozen of these tours, they all kind of look the same. This one was a bit different since the cave developed in marble, not limestone, so the rock walls looked a bit different. But the formations were pretty much the same. There were some things I found annoying though about this tour:
The trails are narrow, poorly lit and uneven/rocky – this was a very narrow, low cave, without all the large, grandiose rooms I’ve seen in most of the other caves. Lighting is sporadic, so I found myself tapping my foot before stepping down, to avoid tripping or turning an ankle.
The tour itself was short, but a good portion of it has a very low roof – I spent a lot of time bent over, sometimes in awkward, narrow channels
The trail ended suddenly, and the last short section was low, uneven and rocky. You are never supposed to touch the walls of a cave, but it’s impossible not to do so when you are bent over in a narrow, rocky channel.
The tour guide was pleasant, but did not spend a lot of time talking about the history of the cave. That may be in part, due to having the Taiwanese guide translate everything she said to his group.
I was glad when we reached the end, and turned around. My goal at that point was to get back to the entrance without damaging myself. Which I did. The entire tour, excluding the hike to the entrance, last about 30 minutes. Check it off my bucket list. Meh.
The day was not a total waste though. A few miles down the road was the Grizzly Creek Waterfall stop – just a very short walk to see a really nice waterfall. There were a bunch of kids splashing around in the pool – kind of looked like fun, but I kept my clothes (and dignity) on.
I had enough fun for the day, and was tired of driving, so I headed off to the Stoney Creek Lodge, which is in Sequoia National Park. More driving on winding, steep roads.
A Hotel Off The Grid
I had not really checked the place out when I booked a room – I was just happy to find a place in Sequoia, that was relatively close to the Crystal Cavern. I had tried getting a room at either the Wuksachi or John Muir lodges, but neither had rooms for a single night. The picture on the Web site for Stoney Creek looked nice, and I figured it was like any other park lodge with a nice restaurant and lounge.
I guess I should have looked at the site a bit more. It was not quite what I was expecting. The owner who checked me in welcomed me to their “off the grid hotel”. Rustic would be the best description. No TV’s, no hair dryers, no bar/lounge, no refrigerator in the room. They had a single generator for the building, and she warned me that they do have issues once in a while. But the room was very comfortable and clean, and A/C was really not needed at this altitude. The staff was extremely helpful and friendly, and the gift shop had Its-its (the best ice cream sandwiches in the world)! And they did have WiFi with a strong signal….I’m guessing it was STARLINK since there was no cellular service in most of the park.
Dinner was pizza, chicken tenders for an appetizer. Served on paper plates. But it was pretty good pizza. Hand made with a good crust. Breakfast was included and was hotel standard self-serve – nothing special, but the bacon was really crisp.
The only issue I had was noise, and that was not the hotel staff’s fault – there are only 12 rooms in the building, with limited places to hang out. Unfortunately a large group, most of whom were not stayin at the lodge, decided to party outside, on a picnic table right under my window. Not the quiet, relaxing evening I was looking forward to. And there was a nice patio in back that they cold have used. I finally got fed up and asked them to quiet down, which they did – it was late, so they just left. I This is why I always try to stay at the main lodges in national parks – they have 24 hour desk staff, so you can call down when you have issues like this.
Crystal Cavern
Bats welcome, humans not
May 3rd, 2026
This was one of those rare occasions when I’ve had a bad experience immediately followed by a great one. I could use a few more of those of late. It was fitting that the last of the cavern tours turned out to be one of the best. Crystal Cavern was about 25 miles down the main road from where I was staying – passing by most of the major tourist attractions. There is a turnoff, just past the Big Tree Museum, that heads down a beautiful valley for about 6 miles – the drive is impressive, going through one of the major burn areas from the 2021 forest fires (more on that in a bit). The road is a bit rough but passable in regular cars (but not so great on your bladder). You wind up in a big parking area with a small visitor shop where you check in for your tour (and make use of the port-a-potties if need be). This is a major attraction in Sequoia, and you must have reservations in advance – you cannot buy tickets at the shop and access is tightly controlled.
The trail starts here
Once your group time is called, you are faced with the long hike down hill to the cave entrance – a half mile with a 300’ elevation loss. A mix of steep, paved trails and a bunch of stairs as well. We were warned to stay on the trail since there is poison oak along the trail edge, and rattlesnakes are common. Oh yeah…there are a couple of stretches where you have to watch out for rock fall. The advice was if you hear the sounds of rocks falling, don’t stand there and look up. Just keep moving. Good advice. Aside from these little problems, it was a nice hike down to the bottom – it was mostly shaded, with lots of flowers, great views of the valley, and a few cascades and waterfalls.
Once we reached the cave entrance, we had to wait until the earlier group all made it out. They are picky about things like leaving people behind in the cave. We did get the story behind the steel spider web gate, which was created in the 1930’s, and hauled down to the entry on the same steep path. It was created to allow entry by bats, but not unwanted humans. As we milled about, I noticed a very small bird, not a bat, was nesting in pocket in the cave roof. Cute…it must not have cared about the mobs of people hanging around below her, seven days a week.
The last stragglers from the earlier tour finally made it out, and our guide kicked things off.
This tour was the exact opposite of the “Meh Tour” the previous day at the Boyden Cavern. Our guide was great – she gave us a detailed history of the cave – from the first explorer, through the development of the cavern as a tourist attraction. went into detail on the geology, and answered lots of questions….did all the things I have come to expect on these tours. Everything else about the tour met or exceeded my expectations. The lighting was excellent, the trail floor was paved the entire way – no rocks to trip over in the dark, and I only had to duck once or twice. The guide warned us when there were narrow sections and used her flashlight on the one or two spots that were a bit more difficult to traverse. My only issue was that we moved through some of the more interesting rooms and passages too quickly to take photos.
The cave had all the usual features, but a few standouts as well – a lot of polished marble (another marble vs limestone cave), a cool stream running through most of the rooms, and a lot of sparkling flows (that’s why it’s called the crystal cavern – lots of clean, sparkling calcite crystals). We stopped in all the larger rooms, and I was able to take a few photos with my phone. I did bring one of my Sony cameras but never had the opportunity to use it. If I ever go back, I’d probably pay for the longer, smaller tour, and have time to take more photos.
I’ve pretty much figured out how to manage my cardiac issue – just take it slow and steady, and take frequent breaks to let my BPM drop down to 100 or so. Photo stops are also a good excuse for taking breaks. I managed to chug up to the top ahead of the crowd without passing out along the way – old but not obsolete.
That pretty much finished the trip for me. I had enough exercise for the day, so after hydrating for a bit, I headed back towards Fresno for another night at the Doubletree Hotel, and then back home Thursday morning.
KNP Forest Fire
The last time I visited Sequoia, I was amazed at the size of the burned areas in the park. I knew that the fires in the past few years had consumed a lot of acreage and had burned some of the giant trees, but the vast scorched areas was amazing. This time, I stopped a few times as I drove through these areas, to photograph the blackened trees, with all the new plant growth coming up in what used to be forest floor. It’s amazing how quickly the cycle begins anew after the landscape is completely torched. Most of the areas I drove through were burned in the KNP Complex fire in 2021, but there were two others, one in 2024, which also burned large areas in the Sequoia Forest. I guess they need to rake the forest more, like they do in Finland.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes these short trips sound like a good idea until I have to spend a lot of time driving, without time to relax. This was one of those trips. The first day in the park was pretty much all driving on mountain roads, first getting to Boyden Cavern, then driving to the lodge for a not too relaxing evening. The next day was pretty much the same – drive to Crystal Caverns then back to Fresno (at least that was to a really nice hotel). And then of course, another 3.5 hours back home along Hwy 99. I never really had the energy to do much else in the two parks except the cave tours. Kings Canyon is not high on my lists of National Parks – I’ve seen enough rocky canyons in Colorado. As for Sequoia, the enormous trees are fantastic when you first see them, but the thrill is gone after that. If I were 20 years (or more) younger, I’d be interested in climbing some of the big Sierra peaks but I’m way past that stage of my life. Hiking, with an emphasis on photography in places like Arches National Park is more like it for me. And staying in one place, like I did in Moab, makes more sense – less driving, more time to relax at night. If I ever go back to Sequoia, I’ll be staying at the main lodge this time.
As for my obsession with caves, I still enjoy the tours, but I’m becoming more cautious as my sense of balance deteriorates. I’m OK if I can see where I’m going, but since you are not allowed to bring hiking sticks into caves, I do need to reach out and touch the sides to stabilize myself once in a while…which you are not supposed to do. So I’ll bring gloves along from now on. The only caves left to visit in California are lava tubes, and there are no restrictions on what you touch or carry in on most of them. Same goes with my upcoming Iceland trip.
One thought on cave photography – I’ve lugged one of the Sony cameras in each of the caves (including the one in Colorado) and after the first one or two, hardly used them. It’s difficult walking through the narrow, low sections with a heavy camera banging against either your leg, or even worse the cave walls. This time, I tried out a really cool harness, which keeps the camera mounted against a plate on your chest, using a slot to keep the camera steady. When you want to take a picture, you just twist the camera and slide it out. It was much easier making my way through the cave with the camera attached in front of me, but difficult to get it back into the harness in the dark. I wound up taking all the photos with my phone anyway. So if I ever do another cave tour, I’ll stick to the phone and GoPro, both of which fit in a pocket. I do occasionally learn from my mistakes. But not too often.
