Devil's Peak: Placer County

Devil's Peak, the name itself is enough to entice any explorer. I had been trying to photograph this majestic peak at sunset for a couple months. Last time I tried, I got rained on. This time, I had seen on the map that there was another lake closer to the peak that I had to see. There was no trail to get to it, so I would have to find my own path and hope I didn't have to bushwhack too much. Most of the way there was pretty clear. I came to a small hill over looking the lake, and the only way down was through lots of brush. I went part of the way down, then realized I would have to come back through it all at dusk. So I decided I did not want to fight through all the brush in the dark and turned around. I came down the other side, thinking I would go back to the other lake right along the trail, but then I saw that I could probably skirt around the side of the hill through some trees to get to the bottom of the lake. And sure enough, I had found a path that I felt comfortable doing at dusk.  I was super early for sunset. I ended up waiting around close to three hours. Numerous times I thought about calling it and heading back. The clouds were a mixture of dark storm clouds and lighter ones that could potentially light up, but all in all, seemed like a slim chance I was going to get any color. Just as the sun was about to dip below the horizon, a little beam of light pierced through the clouds onto the peak. I thought, "that's cool, I should photograph that." I only took a couple, waited around a little more to see if I would get any color, then went home. I left there thinking I would have to come back and try again. There were more clouds in the forecast the following day, so I thought I would come back tomorrow. I got home from work the next day, and was about to start getting ready to leave, but I thought, "I should look at the photos before I go." I uploaded them and loved what I saw. The stormy clouds over the peak with the beacon of light shining on it seemed like something out of a fairy tale. Like a mythical creature lives up there in a castle. Safe to say I opted out of going back the next day.