Conifers And Scrub Aspens. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Conifers among small autumn aspen trees, eastern Sierra Nevada.
This should be my final Sierra Nevada photograph that I’ll share in 2019… but expect more in the coming year! I’m using the term “scrub aspen” to refer to these small trees, even though it isn’t widely used. When we think of autumn aspen trees the taller and often straighter trees come to mind. But in the Sierra these trees come in an amazing range of shapes and sizes. Although they are rare, you can find the same tall and straight trees that you might associate with groves in places like Colorado, but trees that are more twisted are more common here. Many are not that large, and in some rocky areas they may be no taller than you are.
These smaller “scrub aspens” growing on rocky slopes frequently seem to be among the first to change colors in the fall. In fact, these were already fully covered in colorful leaves even though it was just a few days into October. (I generally regard the peak of Sierra aspen color as coming around the second week of the month.) I photographed this scene late in the day, when the sun had dropped behind the peaks of the Sierra crest, leaving this valley in shadow.
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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