Aspen Leaves Near Conway Summit. Sierra Nevada, California. September 27, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Aspen leaves take on fall colors in the middle of a grove near Conway Summit, California.
This is more or less my first autumn aspen color photograph of the 2009 season. Near the end of September I was in the Sierra for a few days, mostly to backpack into Cathedral Lakes for a bit of photography – but after emerging from that trip I had just enough time for a quick trip over Tioga Pass to the “east side” near Lee Vining and then around Conway Summit and Virginia Lake.
In the past I’ve found that the aspens up high on the road to Virginia Lake seem to change fairly early, and they have often lost their leaves even while trees elsewhere are still in good condition. With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to try to make an early trip up this road. As you start up the Virginia Lake Road from Conway Summit you soon begin to pass some fairly large groves of aspen trees. The first grove, along the right side of the road, was still almost completely green. However, just up the road from here and on the left side is another grove at the turn-off for a gravel road – and this grove was in great shape. Many of the leaves had turned golden, and a few had turned hues of red and orange. At the same time there were still quite a few green leaves and only a few leaves had fallen.
As the sun dropped closer to the high ridge of the Sierra crest above Virginia Lake, the east side of this grove began to fall into shade – which can be the best of conditions for photographing the intense colors of these leaves.
This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Web: G Dan Mitchell Photography
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gdanmitchell
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/gdanmitchell
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gdanmitchell
keywords: aspen, tree, branch, twig, leaf, leaves, red, yellow, gold, green, vein, fall, autumn, season, color, bright, conway, summit, highway, 395, virginia, lake, road, grove, tree, forest, sierra, nevada, mountain, range, nature, scenic, travel, foliage, flora, eastern, plant, stock