![]() ![]() The horsemen picketed their mounts in a stand of pines, and one of them explained the object of this journey. The boulder-strewn lake, surrounded by lush alpine meadows, glittered under a flawless blue sky, with the black hulks of Banner Peak and Mount Ritter anchoring the scene. On a bright August morning, a group of Adams admirers emerged from the trees on horseback, making a cloud of dust as they came into view of Thousand Island Lake, at 9,833 feet a splendid prospect in the strong, slanting sunlight. His uncompromising portrayal of these subjects still draws pilgrims to the wilderness that bears his name, deep in the heart of the High Sierra, in hopes of seeing what Ansel Adams saw there. Although he traveled far and wide, he returned again and again to the Sierra-"a noble gesture of the earth," in his phrase-for the adventure, artistic inspiration, friendship, and solace he found among its jagged granite peaks, snow-swept passes, and brooding skies. He kept shooting for almost seven decades, until his death at age 82 in 1984, by which time he had become a world-famous photographer and a powerful voice for wilderness. "I expect to be broke if I keep up the rate I am taking pictures," the budding 14-year-old photographer wrote to his Aunt Mary in San Francisco that summer. On his first trip to the Sierra Nevada, in June of 1916, Ansel Adams went armed with a camera-a Kodak No. This story appears in the October 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. ![]()
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