This vintage silver gelatin photograph, printed in the late 1920s on Kodak Vitava Athena paper, is signed in pencil beneath the image with a typeset title centered in the lower margin. This print was made c. 1927 for the Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras portfolio in a projected edition of 150, of which it is thought that no more than 75 copies were ever delivered to clients. Accompanied by the original folder with typeset title, bearing the artist's wife's collection number in pencil.

"Kearsarge Pinnacles" is one of the finest representations of Ansel Adams's early years, made nearly a century ago on July 6th, 1925 when Adams was just 23-years-old. Adams had joined the LeConte family for a two-month trek through the King's River Canyon, finding time to make photographs between his camp duties. One of the three burros brought on the trip carried over 50lbs of Adams's glass plates, one of which was used to make this delicate photograph. The glass plates that Adams used at the time had an orthochromatic emulsion that made them more sensitive to blue light, and therefore rendered skies, haze, and shadows brighter than they appear to the eye. Adams used this tendency to great effect in "Kearsarge Pinnacles", creating a sense of depth between the foreground trees and the glistening granite slopes of the pinnacles.