Autumn Snow and Morning Light on Wheeler Ridge. Sierra Nevada near Bishop, California. October 4, 2009. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early morning light on the Buttermilks and the face of the eastern Sierra’s Wheeler Ridge as an early autumn storm brings snow flurries.

On both mornings during my early October trip to the Bishop Creek area to photograph aspens, I instead ended up spending at least some time shooting the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada in the area of the “Buttermilks,” an area of very interesting rock formations (and lots of rock climbers!) off of highway 168 above Bishop. On the first morning I drove a good distance up into the region and spent an hour or more shooting a particular scene. On the second morning, when this photograph was made, I only stopped briefly on my up to higher elevation areas, aspen groves, and snow flurries.

An early season storm was coming in – it had been tremendously windy the night before and I’d picked up a dusting of snow at my campsite the night before. While the sun streamed over the White Mountains to the east and managed to light up the high desert hills in this area it was snowing lightly but steadily up in the mountains. Here the light is sweeping across the low, rocky hills in the foreground and hitting the steep lower slopes of Wheeler ridge, while above the peaks are shrouded in mist and clouds and receiving a light but steady snow fall.

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.

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