A dry creek surrounded by golden autumn meadow grasses and illuminated by early morning light winds through a clump of small trees near Fletcher Lake, Yosemite National Park, California.
The meadow around Fletcher Lake (the site of Vogelsang High Sierra Camp, one of the group of well-known high sierra camps in Yosemite) turns a beautiful golden brown in the late season and contrasts with the green of the small trees gradually taking over the meadow, especially when the grasses are backlit by the early morning light.
keywords: creek, dry, bed, meadow, grass, brown, golden, tree, forest, small, fletcher, lake, vogelsang, high, sierra, nevada, camp, backpack, hike, landscape, nature, stock, california, usa, alpine, morning, rock, stone
During the first weekend of September 2008 I made my first late-season visit to the Sierra, heading to Fletcher Lake in the Yosemite backcountry, a place I often try to visit each year at about this time. I like to get up there as the fall season approaches, and an added bonus this time was the possibility of meeting some fellow photographers who were in the area. (More about that later.)
In the morning of my last day at Fletcher I was up early to photograph the morning light on the rocks and trees around the lake, especially those reflected in the still water at that hour. I was just about finished with that project when I spotted these needles on the shady side of a shoreline grove of trees.
keywords: pine, branch, needle, tree, fletcher, vogelsang, lake, yosemite, national park, california, usa, sierra, nevada, nature, green, fall, autumn, pattern, stock
“Subalpine Lakes, Afternoon Showers” — Sun breaks through the clouds to illuminate lakes and surrounding meadows in a valley near Mammoth Lakes, California
This is an older shot that I recently realized has not yet been posted here. There is a bit of an ironic story behind it. A few days earlier some friends and I had started on a 14-day backpack trip along a long section of the John Muir Trail. (It included the one remaining short section that I have not hiked!) After about four days on the trail we arrived at Purple Lake, a bit south of Mammoth, where I began to feel a bit under the weather. Because the next portion of the hike was across a section of the JMT that doesn’t provide many quick exits in case of emergency, I decided that I would evaluate my condition the next morning before continuing.
I still didn’t feel great when I awoke so I regretfully left my group and backtracked towards Duck Pass to exit to Mammoth Lakes and head home. It was only due to this situation I found myself descending this trail below Duck Pass in wonderful weather of mixed thundershowers alternating with bursts of sunlight — which put me in the right place at the right time to see this beautiful scene as sunlight and rain alternately swept across these lakes.
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.
I climbed Mount Whitney – again – on August 11, 2008 after crossing the Sierra Nevada from west to east on Sequoia National Park’s High Sierra Trail. I’ve been to the summit a couple times in the past. Last year I swore I would not climb this peak again, mainly because there are so many other beautiful things to see in the Sierra and I didn’t feel a strong need to do this again. But my friends proposed a trip that concluded with the Whitney ascent, and I couldn’t say no.
A traditional starting point for ascents from the west is Guitar Lake, a small – and often somewhat crowded – little lake in a truly alpine setting just above timberline. From here the trail ascends the valley containing these lakes, leading to the junction with the trail from the east side just before reaching the ridge, and then a lateral trail traverses out to the summit of Whitney.
It won’t surprise anyone if I say that there are some wonderful panoramas to be seen from almost any point on this climb. One of my favorite is this view back across the valley from which the trail ascended and towards high elevation Hitchcock Lakes and the ridge between them and the Crabtree Basin beyond.
(Oddly, I often find the summit view to be photographically uninspiring, and I usually end up just making some “record” photos there and a perfunctory pano or two.)
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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