For several days towards the end of September two of my plein air friends and I stayed at the Sierra Club’s Clair Tappan Lodge near Donner Pass and Donner Lake. The lodge supplied us with rooms and all our meals, so the time was spent painting in the golden fall landscapes. We painted twice along the Lake Van Norden Road in a meadow that had been Lake Van Norden. And one day we were high above Donner Lake.