Trees, Ridge, Morning Haze. Yosemite National Park, California. July 16, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Trees stand in morning light along a glaciated granite ridge, Yosemite National Park.
Many things characterize the unique personality of the Yosemite National Park high country, but for me the glaciated granite slabs and domes are the primary defining features. You can find them elsewhere, but here they seem to be almost everywhere you look. They include areas of pure rock, sometimes almost without fractures and with almost nothing growing. More typical though are scenes like this one, where the granite is fractured, sculpted by ice, littered with erratics, and interspersed with trees and plants that have managed to find a way to live on what seems like bare rock.
On the final morning of a recent visit to the park, before I had to break camp and head home, I went out looking for ridges like this one, topped with trees and photographed in the back light of the morning sun. Beyond the ridge and trees lies the upper end of one of the great canyons of the park, carrying a stream that eventually arrives in Yosemite Valley.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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