Evening colors captured just a few feet from our campsite along the John Muir Trail in Lyell Canyon, Yosemite.

Two raggedy high-altitude conifers encircle a peak near our campsite in Yosemite.

There is a metal plaque bolted to a rock, miles from civilization, in the unspoiled grandeur at the top of Donahue Pass at 11,000 feet on the border between the Ansel Adams Wilderness and Yosemite National Park. The plaque lists all the things you are not allowed to do on the Yosemite side of the sign – the regulations in effect in the middle of nowhere.

I stood aghast, and when I had recovered, I took a photograph to capture the absurdity of it all.

Alpenglow is an intense yellow-red cast to the tops of the highest peaks caused by the last rays of the sun when twilight has already descended upon the valleys below. It lasts only a few moments, but is a truly amazing sight to experience and quite satisfying to capture.

This is one of my favorite photographs I shot at this camp site during our 2003 backpacking trip in Yosemite. The camera I was using was less than one megapixel and had no thru-the-lens viewing, just a separate viewfinder like the old Instamatic cameras. Still, the result was quite satisfactory and accurately captured both the colors and contrasts of the moment.