East Slope Aspens, Autumn. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A large grove of autumn aspen trees extends up the lower reaches of the Eastern Sierra Nevada.
Many of the autumn aspen photographs that we see feature extensive groves tall, straight trees with beautiful white trunks, and sometimes the groves seem to stretch across entire mountains. For the most part, those are not Sierra Nevada aspens! While you can find some similar examples in the Sierra if you look around a lot, most of “our” trees tend to be a bit smaller, and they are often a bit more twisted and gnarly. Some, in fact, are downright small. If you are used to seeing those straight and tall groves… the Sierra may teach you to appreciate different sorts of trees.
However in a few places there are some rather large groves. They frequently show up in places where the aspens have little competition from conifer forest trees — on the tops of some ridges and in some of the sagebrush high country on the eastern flank of the range. This scene is an example of the latter, and the interlocking groves spread across the rise of these hills toward the eastern side of the Sierra in terrain that is otherwise largely open and dry.
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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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Thanks! This area along the east slope is one of the best for seeing those different colored groves.
Dan
Hi Jeffrey. I’m still working out my schedule for the Eastern Sierra (and a few other places) for the upcoming month, but I suspect I maybe over in that area in a week or so. I have a little show with some of my night photography colleagues in San Francisco this coming weekend that I have to work around.
If I’m up there this week it would likely be later in the week.
Dan
Thanks, Dan, for your continued insights into this lovely area that I often visit. Yes it’s a struggle to find groves of large tall straight Aspens there. I went to Colorado last year just for that. But I’ll be photographing the general area around Conway Summit next week. Might we meet up there?
All these gorgeous layers of color! I love this! Some of the trees are yellow and some are orange which makes it very enchanting! Thank you for sharing!