Ansel Adams made this image with a 3 1/4" x 4 1/4" Zeiss Jewel view camera. Precisely when he made the image is debatable; some evidence points to 1943, but it may have been on a pack trip in September 1938 with Georgia O'Keeffe and David McAlpin.

The Lyell Fork of the Merced River with its high, remote peaks and sapphire necklace of lakes was among Adams' favorite areas in Yosemite . In 1934, he led a Sierra Club outing to the Lyell Fork and the group climbed the then unnamed peak Adams called the Tower in Lyell Fork. Around the campfire that evening, the group agreed that the peak should bear Adams ' name. However, the U.S. Geological Survey does not permit naming features for living individuals, so the peak did not officially become Mt. Ansel Adams until 1985, a year and one day after his death.

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