All posts by G Dan Mitchell

G Dan Mitchell, photographer and visual opportunist focusing on the Pacific coast, the Sierra Nevada, redwood forests, California oak/grasslands, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography and more. Posting daily photographs since 2005, along with articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Nevada

Dormant and Alive

October 5, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dormant and live trees form patterns against a cliff face, Great Basin National Park

On my first visit to Nevada’s Great Basin National Park near the end of September, my initial impression was that the “big features” of the park that probably draw the most visitors are two: The Lehman Caves near the entrance and visitor center and the high, alpine area close to Wheeler Peak, the highest point in the park and the second tallest in the state of Nevada. I did not visit the caves, but I did spend a fair amount of time high up near the peaks, photographing and hiking to the alpine lakes and the bristlecone pine groves. (My one regret is that I started out a bit too late on the bristlecone pine visit, and I didn’t have enough time to cover the additional two miles up to and back from the Wheeler Glacier.)

Eventually, as typically happens, I had made my acquaintance with the iconic subjects in the park, and I started to feel the familiar impulse to look around a bit for things that might not be so obvious or immediately impressive. The first foray was up a gravel road past some less developed campgrounds, where I came across at section of low cliff running alongside a gravel road and stream bed. The autumn colors were just beginning to arrive here, so I got out and wandered a bit, looking for juxtapositions of rock and tree. This little vignette attracted my attention, and I was fascinated by the pairing of a living tree full of leaves (albeit just about to turn colors and drop) and the nearby bare, white branches holding only dead leaves, with both set off from the rock behind them.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Glacial Valley

October 4, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A Mount Shuksan glacier lies in a rocky valley under drifting mists

Recently I shared a photograph of the Wheeler Glacier and Cirque located beneath Wheeler Peak in the Great Basin National Park in Nevada. (Yes, I also was unaware that there is a glacier in Nevada…) As I worked on that photograph I had this photograph of a glacier open on my computer. (I don’t know its name — possibly Lower Curtis Glacier?) It struck me just how similar the general features of these widely separated glacier are. Each now consists of an ice field nestled in the bottom of a cirque. Both are surrounded by impressively steep head walls. Both have trees growing very close to the terminus.

I photographed this using a long lens while I was at the Artist Point area at the end of the road to the Mount Baker Ski Area. I had a free day while visiting Seattle, so I did the long up-and-back drive, leaving enough time to photograph in the afternoon. The light may have been less than idea, it being a bit too close to midday, but at times thin clouds muted the sunlight enough to allow light to fill in the shadow details a bit. In addition, some interesting clouds were drifting around the summit of Mt. Shuksan and the occasionally reached further down the peak as in this photograph.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Meadow, Wildflowers, Granite Peaks

October 3, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A view of wildflowers leads across a meadow and lake toward High Sierra peaks

Taking a little break from the Great Basin National Park photographs today, I’m sharing another from our late August and early September backcountry time in the John Muir Wilderness. To recap, we spent essentially nine days base-camped in one spectacular location, from which we could easily explore outwards in all directions — to the meadows surrounding the lake below our camp, further down the drainage where marshy areas were lush and green, a few hundred feet higher where a spectacular meadow full of flowers provided views of alpine peaks, and further up the canyon where we could want cross-country past the timber-line. All in all, it was the kind of location and circumstances that produce a landscape photographer’s paradise.

Near the conclusion of our visit, as happens on any such trip, I was realizing that I still had not gotten to certain obvious subjects. In my case, I hadn’t really spent as much time as I should have in the area right below our camp, where these green meadows wrapped around a small, subalpine lake. So on the first two days of September I focused on exploring this nearby area a bit more. The precise spot in this photograph was one I had first walked through a week before, on the day I completed the (slow!) hike up to this lake. I had walked up this meadow on a faint trail, not really knowing where our camp was and a bit concerned about finding it. Nonetheless, the intense green of the meadow (unusual for so late in the season) and the abundant wildflowers immediately caught my attention. There were many kinds of flowers in the meadow, but here you can see the beautiful paintbrush blossoms, and then the meadow holding the little lake, a bit of forest, and in the distance the high peaks across the canyon from us.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Nevada

Wheeler Glacier and Cirque Headwall

October 2, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

On my recent first-time visit to Nevada’s Great Basin National Park I experienced the challenges and rewards of photographing a brand new (to me!) location. As I have previously noted, I usually avoid doing too much research about a new destination ahead of time, at least beyond what is necessary to successfully get there and back and locate places to stay and eat, along with the most basic known features of the place. (For anyone who hasn’t heard the message already, I’m trying to retain the potential for discovery in new places and to make it more likely that I will form my own orientation to them.) So, what I actually knew about this park in advance of my visit was somewhat limited: it is formed around the Snake Mountains, it is famous for its caves, Wheeler Peak is the second highest point in Nevada, there might be fall color at this time of year, that much of the park is not easily accessible… and there is a glacier!

From this and a few of my other photographs of the high areas of the park you might get the impression that it is largely and alpine place. It isn’t. In fact, the spots that do have that feeling are a small portion of the park and at least partially notable for being exceptions. Yet, once you arrive at such places they become your entire world. (Well, almost your entire world, since views of the surrounding “basin” terrain are rarely far away.) This glacial cirque cuts into the highest ridge, separating the two tallest summits in the park. The view straight into this glacial valley is, indeed, impressively alpine. (As I write this I have a photograph of a Pacific Northwest glacier scene from Mount Shuksan open on my computer, and it shares remarkable parallels with this photograph.) On this visit the effect was enhances by a recent dusting of early autumn snowfall that coats the mountains and the top of the huge rock glacier at the lower edge of the much smaller ice glacier.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

All posts by G Dan Mitchell

Dormant and Alive

Glacial Valley

Meadow, Wildflowers, Granite Peaks

Wheeler Glacier and Cirque Headwall

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.