Devils Postpile

Issue #153 - Virginia City, Nevada

From mid-September until snow closes the road at Mammoth Lakes, usually in mid-October, you can drive your car to the Minaret View Point where you’ll pay the entry fee or show your National Park entry card and drive to the end of the road at your destination. During summer months you must ride their shuttle busses. The road to the parking area narrows and heads downhill for 12 steep and winding paved miles to the parking lot near the Devils Postpile. The trail follows the middle fork of the San Joaquin (waa-keen) River. From the parking lot, it’s less than a half-mile/twenty-minute stroll through the woods to the viewpoint at the bottom of the post pile. The pillars face southwest and are in morning shadows. Direct afternoon light is too flat. I arrived at noon and found a mix of sunlight and dark shadows on the pillars. With a wide-angle lens you can stand at the base of the formation and fill your frame with close-up details of a huge log-jam of stones with 3 to 7 sides, fallen from the rim of the sixty-foot sheer wall of volcanic pillars - a spectacular pattern for photographers.