Category Archives: Photographs: Nature

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Bearpaw Camp

September 15, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Main tent at Bearpaw Camp, Bearpaw Meadow along the High Sierra Trail through Sequoia National Park.

I photographed the main tent (also known as the dining hall) at Bearpaw Camp back in 2008 while hiking the High Sierra Trail across the Sierra from west to east and culminating at Mount Whitney. This was the second time that I hiked this wonderful trail, having previously hiked it several decades earlier with my wife. On this second trip I was traveling with my “back-country friends,” a somewhat informally organized group known as the “talusdancers.” It is a long story…

A photograph of one of these old camps, much like the high sierra camps of Yosemite, always seems to recall images of the “old-time” Sierra for me. One of my first experiences in the high country of the Sierra involved a similar, though less isolated, seasonal tent camp in Yosemite – the Tuolumne Meadows Lodge. My dad had finally summoned up the courage to take his two oldest kids – that would be me and my younger brother, Richard – on what we thought might be a backpacking trip out of Tuolumne. As I recall (though the memory is now a bit hazy) it was September, and we were surprised by snow and cold. Somehow we ended up in one of the tents at the Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, keeping warm by using the little wood stove in the tent, and eating in the dining hall.

As I got older my interests turned to backpacking (and eventually cross-country skiing, some winter camping, and even a bit of rock climbing) and I regarded these camps, even those in the back-country, as being sissy-fied versions of the real thing. But at the same time, I began to develop an appreciation for the back-country history that they connect to in a real and physical way, and also through some of the employees who have worked these places for years or even decades.

In any case, on this August morning my friends and I broke camp a bit to the west of Bearpaw meadow and started hiking. When we got here, even though we are all confirmed back-country types, we couldn’t resist stopping at the main tent and having a look around. The woman inside invited us in. Two of my friends were astonished to find a place like this on the trail that they decided to sit down and order glasses of wine (at the mid-morning hour!) just because they could.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Mono Lake, Thunderstorm

September 14, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Eastern Sierra Nevada thunderstorms build over Mono Lake, Mono Craters, and Lee Vining, California.

Mono Lake can be an unforgiving place in which to try to make photographs during the day, but sometimes one gets lucky! It is a wonderful place, but if you only know it from photographs – which, of course, tend to be made at the most appealing times – you might not know that it is often hot and hazy and dry during the day. These are among the reasons that it is a place often photographed at dawn or at sunset on days when the clouds are interesting. (The latter poses its own set of problems, since the Sierra Nevada range begins to block the light well before actual sunset.)

But I did get lucky on this late July afternoon. It was thunderstorm weather, so there were some very impressive clouds floating around. However, the clouds did not completely fill the sky, so patches of light were moving across the landscape – in this photograph one illuminates the green area at far right along the shore and, more importantly, the Mono Craters beyond the far shore of the lake. And the vegetation around the lake was still green, or at least green enough to look alive in this light.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Granite and Trees, Olmsted Point

September 12, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Lone trees stand among glacial erratics on granite slabs near Olmsted Point as evening light strikes Clouds Rest and Half Dome, Yosemite National Park.

This photograph was made near the popular and iconic Olmsted Point along Tioga Pass Road (highway 120) across the Sierra through Yosemite National Park. The spot is a short walk from the busy parking lot, but even this five or ten minute stroll was enough to get me some relative solitude on this summer evening.

The combination of close granite slabs, glacial erratics lying about, more distant domes and peaks, and a few scattered trees says “Yosemite” to me in ways that are more true than even the iconic scenes from The Valley. Almost every area of the high country was shaped by glaciers, and all of these things are a direct result of that origin. Another thing that I like about this photograph, ironically, is that there is really nothing all that special about it! There are a few high, thin clouds – but no towering thunderheads. The light is warming as the end of the day approaches – but this is not yet prime golden hour light. And although at least one icon appears in the scene, it is not even the dominant feature.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fourth Lake and the Palisades, Dawn

September 8, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

First dawn light on the Palisades above Fourth Lake, Sierra Nevada.

This is a photograph from an eastern Sierra pack trip from a few years back that took us up into the area below the Palisades, the location of the largest glacier in the Sierra and a whole group of impressive and very tall peaks, some of which are visible on the skyline in this scene above Fourth Lake. The photograph was, perhaps obviously, made very early in the morning while the dawn light was still pink, and on a day on which the light was softened just a bit by some haze. We were camped on an exposed bench above this lake which gave us a truly wonderful view of the upper part of this basin.

Any time I talk or write about this trip, I get to tell a story on myself. A few days before we started I had gotten up at night to go do or find something in our home. Stumbling around in the dark I managed to jam my (bare) foot into some piece of furniture or another. I think we all know the feeling! It hurts more than you can imagine, but soon the pain goes away and we forget about it. Well, that is what is supposed to happen.

In this case, the pain didn’t go away. The toe swelled up and turned some interesting colors. My thought process was (based on a healthy dose of denial), I wonder if I broke it (I didn’t really “wonder” much at all), and I really should go see a doctor (I didn’t), and if it is broken I might not be able to go on my pack trip (which, obviously, I did do), because the doctor would tell me (no doubt, wisely) to stay off my foot. So, despite constant pain and swelling and limping I somehow managed to convince myself that it might get better on its own. And it a more stunning feat of denial, I managed to convince myself that it would be fine to go backpacking with a probably-broken toe.

I took it easy, and the uphill walk to this camp wasn’t too bad – though it certainly hurt. Once we got here, I chose to not accompany the rest of my group on a cross-country hike to visit Palisade Glacier, opting instead for a very short stroll to another nearby lake. We “base-camped” for the whole trip, so it turned out that I didn’t need to walk much at all.

Until we left. On the descent, my (gee, maybe it really isn’t) broken toe was jammed into the front of the boot for hours and miles, and at times I wondered just how much real damage I was doing and how much pain I could handle. When I finally got home I did go to the doctor, who basically (and with obvious justification) looked at me like I was nuts and said, yes, you broke your toe, but it is too late to do anything now. Lucky for me, nothing had been displaced and it healed just fine.

And I got this photograph.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

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