Trail running guidebooks and tree work would seem to have little common ground; however, on occasion, the disparate soils of life can mix just long enough to yield fertile cross pollinations of opportunity.
Last December, on the way to a tree restoration job in town, I glanced at the work order and saw a familiar name: Mike McDermott. We went way back to the early 2000s, when he was a City of Bishop Public Works employee dabbling in hobby photography. He often donated framed photographs of local scenery to the High Sierra Ultras for awards. To this day, one of those photographs, from a race so long ago, still adorns a wall at home.
In recent years I had lost touch with Mike, so when he popped out of his house during the lunch hour, it provided a great opportunity to reconnect. During the course of that conversation, I casually mentioned the Eastern Sierra Trail and Adventure Running guidebook project I was working on. I knew he had established himself as a professional photographer in the portrait realm, his work appearing prominently within the local school scene of senior photos, and sports teams.
When he expressed an interest in linking up for a photo shoot, I was both surprised, and excited. My excitement was tempered, however, by the reality of assuming it would simply be a one-off situation – a great addition to further infuse the project’s photography with some true quality, but not a prominent component. Nevertheless, I was extremely grateful for another opportunity, however minimal, to work with a lens pro.
During the lull between epic storm cycles in late January, we met in the Tungstens for a frigid, but fun, shoot. Mike suggested doing another. The next time we recruited local runners, Katie Asmuth, a professional trail runner and nurse practitioner, and Keith Yanov, a lawyer by trade, and de facto leader of the Eastside Trail Runners by passion, and headed to the foothills of the Whites, where we had even more fun.
The collaboration snowballed, literally, as we next pulled off a legitimately arctic-feeling shoot in the Volcanic Tablelands, during near-ground blizzard conditions, with Crystal Dunbar. What I did not know was that Mike was hungry to continue to expand his photography portfolio into the landscape and outdoor sports arenas. And, what I could not have anticipated was that Mike, although no longer an active trail runner, was excited by the project, and the prospects for linking up inspiring locals with spectacular backyard locations.
Over the course of the past year, I have gotten to know Mike better than I did over the previous two decades. Born in Southern California, his family moved to the Eastern Sierra when he was a kid, to own and operate the Bishop Creek Lodge, at 8500’ on the South Fork of Bishop Creek. Living up there year-round at first, the family eventually split time between the lodge in summer, and a place in town during the winter, until selling the business in 1982, a year before Mike graduated from Bishop Union High School (BUHS).
Spending most of his twenties in the typical nomadic, experimental fashion of a young adult attempting to align life’s path with the often at odds variables of being independent, and being inspired, Mike eventually returned to the Eastern Sierra in the late ‘80s, settling back into the Bishop of his youth – minus a Foster’s Freeze, the popular Main St hangout when he was a high schooler, and perhaps a few other trendy trappings of his generation – for the long haul.
In 1989, in classic small town fashion, he married another Bishop local, Debby, whom he met by way of his older sister. A bodybuilder at the time, her second home was the gym, while Mike worked on a nearby ranch. Chancing upon a classified ad in the local paper in 1990 led to what became a 30-year career in public works.
It was this job with the city where Mike became acquainted with civil engineer, Andy Boyd, whose wife, Marie, would, several years later, establish the highly successful High Sierra Ultras multi-race event, held the 3rd weekend of nearly every May since 1994 out of Millpond Park. When, with no prior interest or experience, he randomly picked up a camera, and slowly developed a passion for photography, this connection with the Boyds would eventually lead to Mike donating framed photographs to the race.
Ultimately, after playing football, and competing as a sprinter in track during high school, then going sport-less through his twenties, Mike caught the running and triathlon bugs during his thirties. From 2005 through 2011 he competed in numerous tri’s, including the local favorite, June Lake, and a couple of Ironmans.
Throughout these same years, he worked his way through all of the race distances offered at the High Sierra Ultras as well, culminating in 2010 with the recently added 100K. It was after this effort that his longtime boss, Andy Boyd, himself an ultrarunner, practically made it a condition of continued employment that his co-workers offer congratulations to Mike for his achievement!
The acknowledgement, and support, was nothing new to Mike, as he had those in clover at home with his life partner, Debby, who has always been encouraging of his various time-consuming endeavors, not the least of which has been his work behind the lens.
During the final stretch of his long tenure with the city as a maintenance worker, Mike slowly got both feet through the door in portrait photography, initially offering to hook up acquaintances and their families, gratis. In recent years, he has established himself as one of the busiest senior portrait photographers around. Parlaying his connections through nearly 20 years as a position coach for the BUHS football team, Mike can now also be found capturing local teams with both still, and action shots.
Through it all, Mike’s interest in branching out into landscape and outdoor sports photography continued to grow. When the annual Trail Runner Magazine photo camp came to our Eastern Sierra backyard in the fall of 2018, he jumped on the chance to expand his self-taught skill set. Taking advantage of the opportunity yielded immediate results: one of his photos from the camp ended up on the April 2019 ‘Dirt’ issue cover.
Although it requires patience, an attribute oftentimes in conflictingly short personal supply, and not being beholden to a strict deadline, I am a devout believer in the the magic that can spring forth from the interconnectedness of people and place when projects are allowed the freedom to develop organically, and follow unexpected paths. When a pair of topped sycamore trees randomly recurved the arc of our lives back together, I was more than willing to recalibrate my timeline. The resultant collaboration has infused two synergistic aspects of the project – photography quality and stylistic diversity, and involvement of local runners – with an infectious energy that I could not possibly have produced on my own.
If I possess a creative side, it’s expression is in writing, and at the outset of this project, I assumed the most deeply satisfying aspect would be in the telling of decades of stories related to countless miles spent on foot, in a light and fast, ultrarunning-style, on the routes that will be featured in the book. While this is still true, the connections and interactions with the local running community, whether with long-lost friends, or new, or getting to attach a personality and backstory to someone I only previously knew in passing, fostered through the photo shoots with Mike, have taken a close second position.
Each time we head off to a new location, with a different runner exhibiting what appears to be a universally contagious enthusiasm for being involved, I have to take a moment to convince myself that this collaboration, materializing with zero premeditation, is really happening. What began as a principally solo endeavor, has been steadily gathering human gold along the way. For that, I have a growing number of local trail runners to thank.
And, in Mike, I stumbled upon the motherlode – a Cerro Gordo of psych and skill behind the lens. For that fortuitous twist of fate, I have yet to adequately assay an accurate value.
Follow the continuing photographic journey on Instagram @
