Lower Young Lake, Dusk. Yosemite National Park, California. September 10, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
Category Archives: Photographs: Sierra Nevada
Last Light, Miter Basin
Last Light, Miter Basin. Sierra Nevada, California. August 6, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
Morning, Long Lake
Morning, Long Lake. Sierra Nevada, California. August 6 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
Two Forests, Bighorn Plateau
Two Forests, Bighorn Plateau. Sierra Nevada, California. August 9, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
This is a somewhat mysterious location. It is in the southern Sierra Nevada on the John Muir Trail on the Bighorn Plateau, a huge high area of rolling terrain above the Kern River trench. I can describe what I saw, but I cannot offer an explanation. Right at timberline there is a forest of large, long-dead trees surrounded by a newer forest of much smaller trees. What killed the older forest, how long ago it happened, and why the young forest is now returning are not questions I can answer.