Backpacking the Sierras (with my tiny but mighty camera)

Over the summer I had the chance to hike the James Muir Trail (JMT) that runs along the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.  This trail starts at the Yosemite Valley and ends at Mount Whitney summit, which is the highest point in the lower 48 states at 14,505 feet.  The trail is 211 miles long with total elevation gain of 47,000 feet.  

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Me by Garnet Lake 

This was not a "photo" expedition for me (even though I did take a small camera and took around 4K photos!) I had many reasons why I didn't want to make it a photography trip.  Do you want to know why? Ok.

My hiking crew.  Mt. Ritter in the back there yonder.

Reason number 1).  This was my first real through hike.  For you newcomers a "through hike" means to hike in one session or outing, the entire length of a particular trail.  I've done multi-day section hikes on the Appalachian Trail (AT) before, but for this hike we scheduled 23 days.  So, this was not just a long weekend trip.

Reason number 2). Unfamiliar terrain/altitude.  I'm on the east coast and the hikes that I do are not high.  The JMT is in a vastly different terrain than what I'm used to and the altitude range is 8,000 to 13,000 feet for most of the trail.  In stark contrast, the AT is around 3,000 ft average.  I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro few years back at 19,300 ft and I got altitude sickness around at 10,000 ft.  It was not fun. Headaches, nausea, lose of appetite.  I was also hearing things...

Reason number 3). Weight is a huge factor.  Because of the above 2 reasons, I had to really watch my pack weight.  Out in this trail, we are required to carry all the food in bear proof canisters.  So the idea is, if we get mauled by a hungry bear, they still won't get to our dried noodles.  These cans are around 3 pounds empty.  Long story short, I didn't want to carry my usual photo equipment and its peripherals (battery, charger, filters...) that will increase my pack weight beyond my comfort level and jeopardize the entire trip.

Of course, I still have to carry a camera!  Are you nuts?  Yes, phones are good and everything but I still need enough quality and resolution for big prints in my fine art website.  So I was searching for the perfect camera that fits the bill.  What I needed for this particular trip was: small and light, good battery life, decent resolution, quality zoom lens, ability to charge strait from power bank and a fast and secure way of carrying the camera. Weather sealing would be nice but from what I was hearing, rain was not going to be that bad. More on this later. Sigh...

What did I choose? The Panasonic Lumix DC LX100 II.   I would normally not buy a micro 4:3 sensor camera for my use but that was the only way to keep the size tiny.  Point and shoot cameras with smaller sensors are borderline in terms of image quality in my opinion, so micro 4:3 sensor was the smallest limit for me.  

Camera that I settled on for this trip. Panasonic Lumix DC LX100 II.

The bag I got for the camera. Lowepro Dashpoint 20

This little bag attaches to my backpack shoulder strap so I can get the camera in and out without wrestling with my 30+ pound pack.  I also didn't want anything dangling for 8 hours day.  Its padded enough to protect it against mishandling of the backpack when all you want to do is get the damn pack off you fast.

Going back to the camera.  This technology is like 5 years old now.  It's not the sexiest, or jam packed with stats like the newer cameras but it checks the boxes for this trip: small, light, fits in tiny bag, nice Leica zoom lens (24-75mm equiv), decent battery life and 17 megs for decent size prints.  I would've loved slightly more resolution though, but the good lens makes up for the lower resolution in a way. 

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This camera performed great!  I liked the fingertip zoom control so I don't have to use my left hand (with trekking pole strap getting in the way).  I really liked the app feature where I can download the jpegs to my phone. That function worked well despite the old technology.  It gave me something to do after I had dinner.  That was my routine after camp: get water, clean up, eat dinner, load up favorite photos to my phone, then do my journal then hit the sack around 8pm.  Yep, our bedtime is that of a toddler.  I would shoot low res jpg and RAW at the same time and just grab the selected low res to my phone.  

I also used a circular polarizer on the lens the entire time. I used the B+W High Transmission MRC Nano.  I think the B+W brand is the best in the market. Its expensive, but I say, spend the money on where the lightpath travels (lens and filter).  One side note.  When it gets colder, say 50 or lower, the ring gets pretty stiff to turn.  I just unscrewed the filter partially to adjust for the polarization.  

Circular Polarizer by B+W

The polarizer gives you contrasty blue skies and nice saturation.  Yes, it's true that you can get that effect in Photoshop or LightRoom, but getting it right in the camera makes your files even more workable with less chance of losing quality since you're not "pushing" the image.  

Contrails made by fighter jets.  The polarizer really enhances the clouds and the blue sky. All day you can hear these multi-million dollar jets ripping through the skies. Here you can see their dogfight training maneuvers. 

So I mentioned earlier about weather sealing, which this camera doesn't have.  I've been shooting cameras since the 90's and weather sealing has never been a big issue for me.  My hasselblad, Nikon F3 HP, Pentax 67... all were not weather sealed. But I did shoot them in the rain. I would hide the camera under my jacket till I need to shoot, pull it out quickly, shoot then back in my jacket it goes. Never had issues flooding any of my cameras.  

Around halfway point of the through hike, we started to have some rain. No biggie. then some more rain. then more rain... turns out that this was a monsoon.  People were saying that they've never seen so much rain in last 5 years!  Found out later that Yosemite park was closed during this time due to too much rain. So how about that weather sealing now?

Condensation from the inside of the lens making a cool effect, no?

Waiting out the rain in my poncho. Camera is in my shoulder bag and under the poncho. 

It's not that my camera was wet (well, slightly) but it was the condensation and humidity that went inside the camera.  The camera was well covered so it didn't see too much water but after awhile, I could see that the lens were fogging from inside the camera. Oh crap... Especially in the chillier mornings where condensation was heavy, I would get this misty effect on the pictures.  I was betting that the camera will crap out soon.  Especially when the viewfinder started to glitch, like when Terminator was about to die.  Well, it didn't die.  When the sun would come out, I would dry the camera in the sun and the fogging would disappear.  Then everything functioned as normal.  I was pleasantly surprised! By the way, I LOVE the sun!  I can't think of a time when I was so glad to see the sun (after 5 hrs of hail and rain storm and thinking that death from hypothermia was quite possible...)  Now I know why the Ancients worship the sun! 

This is what condensation looks like at 10,000 ft.

So, was my camera system ideal for this trip?  No, it wasn't. I would've loved more resolution and more weather protection for sure.  But what I really would've loved more was time.  More time to compose, more time to wait for the right light to happen, wait for the weather to change... If I did all that, I would still be in the mountains right now!  My priority for this trip was to enjoy and survive the hike first, then take pictures.  This camera did what was expected to do from me. 

There are so many moving parts in an expedition like this. Food and water is easy, there are hundreds of water source along the trail and there are resupply points where you send yourself food.  But keeping up with powering the equipment will define where and when you have to head to these resupply points.  I used Anker 20,000 mAH power bank to charge my phone, camera (via usb-c) and my head lamp.

Anker 20,000 mAH power bank

This power bank could get me 6 days of my total use.  Not too bad, but If I were to have brought my bigger cameras, it would've been shorter for sure.  So, once again, the equipment that you'll carry will dictate how you will schedule your resupplies.  That's why I opted for the minimal camera knowing that I couldn't deviate from my schedule too much since I was with other hikers.  Now with this experience,  know what I can carry and how I need to schedule my resupply stops for the next full photography trek!

This trip was epic! Met a lot of cool people along the way.  Most through hikers are weird. that's why I felt so comfortable with them!  I mean, who would go out of their way to spend a lot of time and money to travel to this area so you can sleep in uncomfortable tents, eat the same dried noodles everyday, no shower, no changes of clothes, no connection, freezing at night, being exhausted, getting bit by mosquitos (literally hundreds of times) dealing with some kind of pain everyday, fearing about the weather, bears and having to do your "business" in plen-air, in a hole that you need to dig...  Who would do that?! Me! and Thousands of other interesting people that enjoys the very same things that I did.  From music teaches, to marine biologists, to students, to actress... 

At VVR.  A popular place where the hikers take a 0 day (no hiking) and fuel up with beer and gigantic sized pancakes!

We all respected what this experience has given us. Even though some of the experiences were not pleasant or comfortable. In a way, isn't that what life is about? Being able to deal with things?  Then you look up and realize the beauty of it all.  Now everything is worth it!  Is it worth it to everybody? No. I think that's the million dollar question, "What's worth it to you?". 

The mountains is a training ground where I can experience and prove myself wrong about my faulty preconceptions.  How much exhaustion could I really take? How much of my fears are real vs monsters I made up in my own head?  How much of this misconception do I have in my everyday life?  Photography has given me the avenue to ponder about these things... Thanks photography!  

Are you thinking about doing this trail? Ask me about any questions on the comment section.  If you've done it before, I'll be curious to what you used as camera gear!

On my way to the Mt. Whitney Summit.  This was only the halfway mark. One foot ahead of other.