Category Archives: Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Swamp Onion Flowers

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Swamp Onion Flowers
Swamp onion flowers growing at the edge of a Sierra Nevada meadow

Swamp Onion Flowers. John Muir Wilderness, California. August 28, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Swamp onion flowers growing at the edge of a Sierra Nevada meadow

As I’ve written previously, during our late-August (and a couple of days into September) Sierra back-country visit this year we were treated to a surprising scene — green and lush meadows and plenty of wildflowers, something more typical of perhaps late July or early August. During the previous three years the Sierra was greatly affected by the historic drought, and much of the range was already drying out before August, so the change was striking and gratifying. It has been too long since I’ve seen the summer Sierra full of flowers and with snow banks still covering the higher peaks and ridges.

Shortly after we arrived at our back-country base camp we began investigating the nearby subjects that might be worthy of photography. Below “our lake” there was a small meadow clearing that was full of moisture, and near its lower end was one of the largest displays of the flowers of swamp onion (also known as pacific, wild, and mountain onion) that I recall seeing. This plant has always held a special place for me on my back-country travels. It grows in wet areas, and often it produces very large clusters of the plants; the flowers are attractive; and the scent of fresh onion is lovely. I’ll admit to occasionally rubbing or even breaking off a bit of a leaf to enjoy that fragrance! These flowers were in this meadow, where I had arrived to photograph very early, while frost was still on the ground and the sunlight had not yet arrived. I made this photograph as the first beams of morning sun hit the meadow itself and back-lit these plants and their flowers.

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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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Mountains, Alpine Tarn, Dark Clouds

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Mountains, Alpine Tarn, Dark Clouds
Dark clouds assemble behind a ridge over a tarn nestled in an alpine meadow

Mountains, Alpine Tarn, Dark Clouds. John Muir Wilderness, California. August 28, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dark clouds assemble behind a ridge over a tarn nestled in an alpine meadow

I first visited this area a number of years ago — I think it may have been a dozen years now. I was on a fast and light trip with a buddy, carrying an ultra-light load and sleeping in a bivy sack. We entered this general area and went straight to a lake close to timberline where we made a base camp and went on to further explore the upper reaches of this basin. This return trip was different in many ways, but perhaps most of all in its almost exclusive focus on photography. We stopped at a lower lake and set up a camp, hidden in trees on top of a moraine, and there we would remain for more than a week, wandering out each day to look for photographic subjects. I soon discovered that I had missed a true gem on that earlier visit.

On the first full day of this recent trip we left our campsite and, in small groups, ascended the rocky moraine through small trees to reach a little use trail. We followed that upwards, still in forest. But then there were breaks in the forest cover and suddenly a large meadow covered the rounded hills at the top of an old glacially sculpted where a lake had likely once filled a shallow valley. (A small tarn is all that remains today.) Whatever your fantasy of a mountain meadow might be, the first sight of this scene exceeded it. The grasses were still green, even though it was near the end of August. Wildflowers in a rainbow of colors were sprinkled throughout the meadow. Peaks rose on three sides, and on the fourth side there was a deep valley with even higher peaks beyond. I returned to this spot many times — probably once a day for the next week — and I made this photograph a few days later, in the early evening as low angle light slanted across the meadow and distant peaks and dark thunder clouds began to gather in the further distance.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Last Light, Stormy Sky

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Last Light, Stormy Sky
Dark storm clouds beyond meadows and Sierra Nevada peaks and ridges.

Last Light, Stormy Sky. John Muir Wilderness, California. August 28, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dark storm clouds beyond meadows and Sierra Nevada peaks and ridges.

During our late August and early September foray into the John Muir Wilderness of the eastern Sierra Nevada we were fortunate to have “interesting” weather. While we had our share of typical Sierra blue sky days, we also had clouds, ranging from the sort that drift benignly across the sky to those that bring rain, hail, thunder and lightning. While the idea of dealing with rain, occasionally briefly heavy, in the backcountry might not sound all that appealing, from a photography point of view the weather almost always makes for more interesting conditions. It also provides a wonderful topic for camp conversations as we try to guess what will happen and when.

This evening’s conversation almost certainly involved both the beautiful light and the thunderstorm hovering beyond the ridge to our south, a storm that turned the sky dramatically darker beyond the light on the ridge. While our camp was more or less hidden in forest on top of a moraine — we try to minimize the visual intrusion of our camp on the landscape — we were repeatedly drawn to nearby open areas. Right below us was a lake and surrounding meadow, and not far above our location the trees thinned and the landscape opened up. This photograph was made from a meadow in that higher area, a place we visited repeatedly.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Subalpine Meadow, Forest, and Peaks

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Subalpine Meadow, Forest, and Peaks
At the edge of a subalpine meadow, surrounded by forest and high peaks

Subalpine Meadow, Forest, and Peaks. John Muir Wilderness, California. September 1, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

At the edge of a subalpine meadow, surrounded by forest and high peaks

I’ll have to go back and look through a week’s worth of photographs to see if I’m just imagining it, but it seemed to me that we could almost watch the high meadows start to change from green to golden during this late-season trip into the John Muir Wilderness. It was surprisingly green when we arrived about a week from the end of August — the surroundings looked more like perhaps lake July of a normal year, with lush green vegetation in the meadows and extraordinary numbers of blooming wildflowers. One doesn’t typically go to the Sierra near the beginning of September to photograph wildflowers, but that was quite possible this year. But by the first days of September, a week later, it seemed like the usual transition from green to golden was finally happening.

We were also fortunate to experience “interesting” weather, which is not always a sure bet in the Sierra. Talk to a few long-time High Sierra photographers and you’ll hear griping about the terrible, awful “week of boring blue skies!” That may seem like an odd complaint to those who frequently must photograph through challenging weather, but we can be frustrated by too much blue sky! We did have these conditions on this trip, but we also had clouds and rain, including one surprise after-dark shower. The clouds in this photograph are small, but it was still morning — such clouds are often the harbingers of afternoon thunder showers.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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