Mount Conness and Ragged Peak, Forest. Yosemite National Park, California. July 11, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light slants across forest below Ragged Peak and Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park, California.

This photograph was made from the Tuolumne Meadows area with a long lens, and it includes the heights of Mt. Conness at the far right, the lesser prominence of Ragged Peak at the left, a shaded ridge running above the Young Lakes basin, and a closer bit of typical Yosemite forest mixed with a bit of dome-like granite, with sunset light slanting across from the left. By the way, I wondered for some time where the name “Mt. Conness” came from. I finally looked it up during the past year, and I found out that the namesake was Senator Conness, one of the two California senators during roughly the Civil War period – Conness was responsible for the legislation that initially set parts of the current Yosemite National Park aside for protection and preservation. All in all, a person deserving of a peak with his name.

Although photographed here from some distance, I know parts of the landscape encompassed by this photograph quite well, including the visible portions and some that are hidden from sight in this photo. For a number of years I have made a habit of visiting the Young Lakes area at least once each season, often late in the season when the summer crowds have dissipated – though I have also visited very early in the season, and I have the mosquito stories to prove it! Young Lakes lie on the other side of the shaded ridge traversing the center of the photograph, and I’ve often looked up at that ridge from the lakes. I have also hiked up into the valley on this side of the ridge. The trail to Young Lakes crosses the wooded area beyond the sunlit trees and passes through a beautiful semi-meadow area below Ragged Peak, a place where beautiful lupine flowers may be found at the right time of the year and from where one can obtain some panoramic views of a lot of high Yosemite Peaks. On one of my first visits to Young Lakes, it was so late in the season that the backcountry ranger who was patrolling the area apparently had little to do, and one morning we ended up having a very long conversation along the shore of one of the lakes. I remarked that a particular little gully in roughly the area of Ragged Peak looked like it might be interesting, and he shared enough information about the route that I chose to use it rather than the regular trail on my return to the trailhead. Mt. Conness, here the only peak or ridge still fully in sunlight, towers above everything else in this area. I have not climbed it, though I have investigated some trail less areas around its base and I’ve looked at it from almost every side.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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