(light music) - [Narrator] It's a part of California that doesn't usually end up on any travel destination bucket list.

- It may be caused by the fires that came through here.

I don't know what, but it is spectacular.

- [Narrator] But as people are busy headed to another crowded beach or into the mountains to discover its world-class national parks, an entire section of California remains largely overlooked as a place to explore.

- It's a very vibrant orange.

We were just saying that the cameras and the videos don't really do it justice.

- [Narrator] These are the foothills of California, landscapes with their own distinct beauty that can change dramatically with the seasons but can be difficult to reach on private lands.

- Depending on what's going on, if I need to do some thinking or come for regular to think about things.

- I'd be thinking a lot if I had this in my backyard.

- [Narrator] But we found a few ways to unlock the usually impossible access to places like this that anyone can use at a time of year that makes these often forgotten settings some of the best places to photograph on Earth.

- What we're seeing right now are goldfields and meadowfoam.

- [Narrator] Get ready for a rarely seen side of California's outdoor beauty as we crack the code on capturing foothill frames that come to life.

- Good thing I packed a flower print dress and I can bust out from "Do Re Me" right now.

- [Woman] That's right.

(upbeat music) (thunder rumbling) - [Narrator] When you travel, the world becomes a smaller place.

When you explore with friends that share a love of photography, destinations come to life.

- This water is emerald green.

- [Narrator] We tell the stories of travel with our cameras, capturing some of the most beautiful locations on Earth.

But every adventure reveals more than what's in the frame.

- Thunder boomers, we see 'em popping up right now.

- [Narrator] The people, the food, and unexpected turns in the journey.

- [Man] Now they're gonna swim right with us.

- [Narrator] Brings the full experience of travel into focus.

(light music) - [Announcer] "Outside Beyond the Lens" brought to you by: Visit Fresno County, nature diversity.

Found in the heart of California's Central Valley.

Stay in Fresno or Clovis and drive to three nearby national parks.

By Hedrick's Chevrolet, supporting the spirit of travel in each of us.

Every journey has a first step, start your next adventure here.

By Fresno Yosemite International Airport, rediscover your love for travel with more options, more flights, more connecting you to the people and the places you love.

And by Visit Yosemite Madera County, California's gateway to Yosemite National Park.

Explore the outdoor magic of Madera County and be inspired to discover more.

And by viewers like you.

(light music) - [Jeff] In a state with nearly 40 million people living in it, it's easy to forget that most of California looks like this: hundreds of thousands of acres of wide open rolling grasslands and pastures that make up a section of the state within an area we call the foothills.

California's coastal mountain ranges from just north of Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area are almost entirely made up of foothills.

On the east side of the state's massive San Joaquin Valley, foothill lands gradually rise to form the tallest mountain range in the contiguous United States, the mighty Sierra Nevada.

But it's here, in places like Yosemite National Park or on the world famous beaches of California, that most tourists seek out.

Driving past some of the best places for landscape photography you'll find anywhere in America.

And in spring, when the foothills are green after winter rains and carpets of wild flowers come to life, a short window of time is open where this becomes one of our favorite locations to shoot on Earth.

For this adventure, Zack, David and I have split up to cover more ground as the seasons change rapidly in California and the opportunity to film these landscapes in full bloom may only last a week or two.

We also decided to shoot this one over the course of several months to show the contrast of how these foothills can change from season to season.

And since most of the foothill lands in California are on private property, with a lot of these areas used for cattle grazing, we're going to show you how conservancy organizations are a great way to support the protection of the foothills from commercial and residential development while allowing you access to hiking and photography that in spring is tough to beat.

So, obviously, most of Central California's foothill area is going to be private property.

You're gonna see a lot of cattle ranching.

You're gonna see a lot of barbwire fencing.

You're gonna see a lot of cattle.

There's also gonna be a fair amount of public access roads that go through these areas, county roads, that type of thing, and usually you'll find places to pull over.

And when the setting is right, and when the lighting is right, like it is now, right now we've got a weird, mixed sky going, it's been really flat all day today, it's been kind of cruddy photographically.

But right now we've got some mixing sky in the west.

The sun's kind of peeking through and playing peek-a-boo right now.

And what you get in that situation is you get these little bursts of low angle sunlight, that late afternoon sunlight coming in and sort of painting the foothills foreground with the light in the foreground and then you'll have this dark background which we have right now.

So it's great photographically.

And I always, I don't know, when I'm driving around I always try to think, keep your eyes open for that little moment for that one place that just has the right setting.

It's just a feel thing.

You're gonna come around a corner and you're gonna see something just speaks to you, pull over and get the shot.

It's too easy to keep driving and say, "Oh, I'll just go a little further.

I'll just go a little further."

The next thing you know, you're back home.

(light music) How are you liking the iPhone 12 as a landscape shooter?

- I like it.

I'm gonna shoot you now.

We're shooting each other.

- Yeah.

One of the things I love about, point it out that way to the to the bright sky in the dark foreground is the HDR, the high dynamic range on the iPhone 12 in video mode is actually really nice.

As you can see what Jill's doing here, she's setting exposure for the sky, but the HDR, when it's on, it'll really make a nice shot.

And it's got the wide angle lens too on the new iPhone 12 and the iPhone 11.

About 90% of the time we shoot this show with our big cameras.

These are professional grade rigs shooting in 4k with pretty expensive lenses.

But to illustrate that you don't need to break the bank to be a good landscape photographer, my wife, Jill, shot all of these scenes with her new smartphone.

Like the big cameras, these phones can shoot stunning 4k video and can help almost anyone enjoy the practice of photography with pro results.

Taking the public back roads through these private foothill lands is a fun way to explore with any camera, and here in early January, the rains haven't yet come to California, leaving the rolling hills brown and the cattle hungry.

But by mid-March, that's all changed, and now thirsty range lands near Fresno, California look like the hills of Ireland in spring.

I'm fortunate to have access to some of these private lands and the owners of the ranches have agreed to allow us to shoot here to share these typically off-limit landscapes with all of you.

All right, so today is a perfect example of the hills are alive with music and flowers and greenery.

So we wanted to come up today because this is such a perfect example of the foothills in spring in California.

And what happens out here for a brief window of time, these foothills just come alive and they're just beautiful.

And that's what this show is all about.

The added cool fun factor thing we wanted to do today was we left the big cameras at home, the big cameras you normally shoot the TV show with home.

It's just Jill and I out here in the battle van and we're gonna shoot this entire bit with our phones.

The new smartphones, like the iPhones, are really cool.

I've got an iPhone 11, she's got an iPhone 12.

We're not sponsored by Apple, so it's okay to talk about the products.

And anyway, we're just gonna go ahead and have fun out here filming what we see on this beautiful tabletop mesa out here on a great day and show everybody, I hope, how you don't need the big fancy camera to come out and enjoy landscape photography.

(light upbeat music) This ranch is known for its distinctive tabletop feature that rises sharply above the surrounding pastures.

The plan is to take the battle van up on top of the mesa to enjoy the springtime views, but on the way, Jill and I are drawn to the unique rock formations that have crumbled off the walls of these tables revealing clues to this area's volcanic history.

Now, Jill is a bit of a rock hound.

Whenever we're out exploring she usually has her nose pretty close to the ground investigating the different rocks she encounters and often comes home with a pocket full of them that she then hands to me to do something with.

Now, up on top of the mesa, the sweeping views and lush green grasses paint an amazing landscape that really needs to be captured by drone.

This is the peak season to be in these foothills.

The grasses, flowers and now oak trees are leafing as warmer temperatures return.

Soon, this entire area of California will turn brown as extreme heat returns in the summer.

But for now, on a day like today, moments from a perfect afternoon are captured and memories are made.

Not all of California's Sierra Nevada foothills are privately owned, federal and state owned lands, like the shores of Hensley Lake in Central California, provide excellent fishing and hiking among the green hills of spring.

Here, high above Hensley Lake is a point of interest that's directly tied to one of America's most popular national parks, Yosemite, just over an hour away.

This is the final resting place of Major James Savage.

Savage was a store owner and trader in the foothills not far from here just after the California gold rush.

Savage was well-known locally for trading and working with the Native Americans in this area at the time.

- I'm up at the top of the hill here and behind me is James D. Savage's memorial.

One thing I found interesting about it, which is cool, is it's kind of pointed in the direction of, you can see it from behind here, but based when you're looking at the monument, you're looking directly towards Yosemite Valley out there which is a good hour, hour's drive, hour and half probably.

Discoverer of Yosemite Valley, March 25th, 1851.

He blazed the trail for others to follow.

And follow we did.

- [Jeff] Never to miss an opportunity to grab an interesting time lapse shot, Zack finishes up this short segment for us with one last look at the memorial that now stands at Savage's grave.

(light music) Higher up in the foothills, just below Yosemite along the highway 140 approach to the park, David Boomer is shooting at a place where spring triggers an event that is a popular stop for Yosemite travelers here.

At Hites Cove along the Merced River.

- The color out here is just crazy.

I actually wish Zack and Jeff were here with me 'cause I know they'd be loving it.

They'd be going nuts with all this color.

- [Jeff] The steep slopes above the river flowing the spring snow melt hold a dazzling display of California poppies, the state flower, all accessed on a narrow and exposed trail that can be crowded in peak bloom.

- The trail is really narrow too, and really steep.

So if you've got kids and that kind of thing, pets, I mean, everybody has to be really careful 'cause once you start going down some of these banks to the river, that's pretty much it.

- We decided that we wanted some time outdoors away from work, kinda disconnect, spend some time outside.

So decided to come up to Yosemite, spend like a couple days here, doing some different hikes and saw this one in particular with all the poppies and decided to come by, get some of the river and some flowers.

- Yeah, and we're on our way into the park right now to do Vernal Falls and kind of see the sites.

But this is a great pit stop because it's so beautiful.

- Saw all these golden poppies that are in bloom, like that right there, and it was so awesome that I just had to stop and take some shots.

The redbud is in bloom as well and so they're just a spectacular spring type event.

- [Narrator] The Hites Cove hike is a perfect example of public lands that allow access to the beauty of California's foothills in spring, and as another reason to explore an area that too often is passed right on by.

In the foothills just east of Fresno, California, the gentle rolling shape of hillsides are interrupted by distinctive flat tabletop features that follow the basic path of the San Joaquin River below.

On the north side of the river in Madera County, one of these massive tables sits on property owned by Bart and Cindy Topping.

Generational cattle ranchers whose family has worked these lands since the late 1800s.

Like many of the ranchers in this area, preserving this land in places like this incredible tabletop ecosystem, means partnering up with a conservancy organization to protect these areas from development.

The Sierra Foothill Conservancy helps ranchers like the Toppings, and others in this part of central California, protecting over 50,000 acres of some of the most beautiful and productive cattle ranching lands you'll find anywhere.

All right, so we're walking around in some of this beautiful Central California foothill areas right now in spring and I'm lucky enough to be walking with some people that know a lot about this.

I've got Bart and Cindy Topping here and they've been nice enough to show us around some of the lands that they own.

I'm here with some of the Conservancy folks.

But what is it about this time of the year, Billy, that you love about being up here?

- Oh man, you can just see the fullest expression of the biodiversity that's here especially in terms of native plants, native forms, all the species that are present.

It's a really beautiful time right now.

- Do you guys ever just come up here and just sit and just be quiet with nobody and just like peace out?

- I do.

- Bart, you do?

I mean, I get it.

- I come up here and think, yeah.

This spot we're standing on right now was my grandad's part of his homestead.

As the other brothers and sisters left the ranch my granddad was able to purchase their homesteads and so he put the ranch together and then my dad and uncle inherited it from him and then Cindy and I inherited it from my dad, or took over for my dad when he was unable to do it anymore.

So we were looking for a way to see that that legacy continued on, the ranch legacy, and it was about the time Sierra Foothills Conservancy was being formed.

(light music) - Sierra Foothill Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and we're a land trust and we can serve range lands in Fresno, Madera, Mariposa, and Eastern Merced Counties.

Range land conservation essentially comes down to ecosystem services.

Ecosystem services are what society gets out of having range lands conserved.

So people tend to think about what they're getting out of range lands in terms of food and fiber production, some scenic cultural value.

But what people don't think about is things like clean air and water and more so climate regulation, the carbon that's stored in the soil.

So most of the state's water moves through range lands before it can be used by society and so it's really important that we steward these resources appropriately so that we can continue to have these things and make use of it.

- Allyson, you grew up in these mountains.

What do you love about being up here this time of the year?

- Well, I love being outside any day.

It's like I was telling these guys this morning I've been on my computer for the last three days straight and so to be out here with these guys and especially being able to be with the homeowners it's just super special.

Plus, you know, standing up here on the tabletops like you're not only experiencing the history, the human history, but being on this tabletop, I mean, we're standing on millions of years of history with the lava flow and it's just super, super special.

- [Jeff] The partnership between the Sierra Foothill Conservancy and the Toppings allows the Conservancy to protect and monitor these lands they've purchased from the Toppings while giving them an easement to continue their cattle ranching legacy.

It's a great example of how agriculture and ranching families are working with environmental efforts to protect the planet while continuing the important job of growing our nation's food.

- And that's the good thing about Sierra Foothill, that they provide tours, walks, nature hikes through to the public, which is available.

Now we don't do it to the public on this place, you know?

We're pretty protective of it.

However, we do, one day a year with the Conservancy, for the major donors, they can come up on a one day, hike the tabletop especially like this time of year with the flowers and that, and then they have a lunch and a little discussion afterwards.

So the major donors get to come and see this, not everybody.

- Now, while Bart and Cindy Topping's place is pretty tough to see for the general public, the Sierra Foothill Conservancy does take care of public lands on the south side of the San Joaquin River in Fresno County.

And here, the tabletops really command the landscape above Millerton Lake.

Today, I'm lucky to team up with Allyson again and Bridget Fithian, the executive director of the Sierra Foothill Conservancy, for a tour of these unique geologic features that are a familiar and beloved part of the Central Sierra Nevada Foothills landscape.

Okay, so we're leaving the Martin Preserve now and we're headed up to the McKenzie Reserve and I am in the good hands of two experts.

Am I not?

- The finest.

- You are.

- Yes!

- The finest experts.

- [Jeff] Okay, so we got the new off road vehicle here we're gonna take up and about how far are we going right now?

- Six, seven miles.

- Okay, but we're going to the top of the tabletop right now.

- We're going to the top of the table.

- [Jeff] And we'll need four wheel drive.

- And we'll need four wheel drive.

And we're hoping that we're breaking this baby in today.

- Let's do it.

- All right, let's go.

(upbeat music) So the Eastern Sierra has this feature that's called the Long Valley Caldera, and historically that erupted with some of the most massive lava flows that California has ever seen.

And so what happened was that lava flowed all the way across what is the Sierra Nevada now in the lowest places.

So it flowed down into all of the river canyons and over time, through processes of erosion, the lowest point in the landscape became the highest point in the landscape.

So what we have now is our flat tables that are the highest point in this landscape but they're actually this ancient magma flow that has the sinuosity of the San Joaquin River and other rivers throughout the Sierra.

- Beautiful.

(upbeat music) I'm sensing a "Sound of Music" moment right now as we approach the top of the tabletop here.

Good thing I packed a flower print dress and I can bust out some "Do Re Me" right now.

- Right now in the foothills on the preserves that Sierra Foothill owns and on the ranches that we hold conservation easements on, we just see this glorious spray of white popcorn flowers and golden fields of goldfields and fiddleneck and it's really a magical thing and a really special quality of our foothill region.

- We're here on top.

This is McKenzie Table?

- This is Big Table.

- This is Big Table.

Okay.

- This is state land.

- We're on state land right now.

- That SFC manages.

- But what we're looking at, and we saw this when we were shooting on the other side of the river over in the Madera County, we're in Fresno County right now.

But when we were over in Madera County what you notice when you get to these tabletops, as you were saying, are these vernal pools and this time of the year, because they were once a pool, I guess, you get this concentration of flowers, right?

What are we seeing?

- Yeah, exactly.

So, we have this layer of soils that are not very permeable because they're made out of this volcanic material and so they hold water for longer periods of time.

And so the pools stay and then all of the flowering species and the fairy shrimp and the little invertebrates that live in these pools have the opportunity to fulfill their life cycle.

So what we're seeing right now are goldfields and meadowfoam blooming, and we've got fiddleneck and popcorn flower out here as well.

Couple types of rhodia, I think there's a snake lily over there maybe.

Yep.

- [Jeff] I was gonna say that was the snake lily.

I was almost.

- Isn't that a great name?

- I was almost certain it was a snake lily but I didn't wanna pull the trigger.

Didn't want to seem stupid.

- Right?

It's such a great name.

Yeah.

- [Jeff] I grew up in this area but have only recently discovered the magic of actually exploring the tops of these tables.

It really is surprising how instantly different it feels once you get up here, and making the trip to Big Table or nearby McKenzie Preserve through the Conservancy's access is a special experience and a great way to see a side of California's natural beauty beyond its national parks and beaches.

This was also a chance for me to learn about what the Sierra Foothill Conservancy is.

And after spending the day with the people that do this work I have complete admiration for how they are bridging the worlds of environmental protection with the importance of maintaining agricultural legacies.

Doesn't get any better than this, in my opinion, on a spring day.

It's mid-80s, it's April 2nd, 2021, and I can't think of a whole lot of other places on Earth I'd rather be right now.

- Right?

Me neither.

It's just magical.

And it's our backyard, you know, this is where Allyson and I grew up and where you grew up, too.

- Yeah.

- And it feels really good to do work that saves your backyard, you know?

That saves the land that's part of how you grew up frolicking in the wild flowers as a kid and how you want your kids to grow up being able to, you know, run around and climb trees and rocks and get to have those experiences too.

And that's what we do.

That's what Sierra Foothill Conservancy does.

- We're happy you're here, man.

- High five.

- High fives.

Thanks, you guys.

(light upbeat music) (light music) - [Narrator] "Outside Beyond the Lens", brought to you by: Visit Fresno County, nature, diversity found in the heart of California's Central Valley.

Stay in Fresno or Clovis and drive to three nearby national parks.

By Hedrick's Chevrolet, supporting the spirit of travel in each of us.

Every journey has a first step, start your next adventure here.

By Fresno Yosemite International Airport, rediscover your love for travel with more options, more flights, more connecting you to the people and the places you love.

And by Visit Yosemite Madera County, California's gateway to Yosemite National Park.

Explore the outdoor magic of Madera County and be inspired to discover more.

And by viewers like you.

(light music continues) (blasting) (upbeat music)