Mount Hamilton Road, Santa Clara Valley. December 14, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The expansive panorama from the summit of Mount Hamilton, including Mt Hamilton Road, Santa Clara Valley, and the distant San Francisco Bay

I have a long and deep relationship with the terrain shown in this photograph — a photo that may not mean much to people who don’t share this experience, or at least know similar California coastal and inland terrain. I made the photograph late on a winter afternoon at the summit of Mount Hamilton as a Pacific weather front was just nosing in over the San Francisco Bay Area. Mount Hamilton is the tallest peak in the Bay Area at just over 4000′, and it is also the site of the historic James Lick Observatory. The view from the summit takes in a huge swatch of California — on clear days you can see a good chunk of San Francisco Bay to the northwest, Monterey Bay to the south, and the line of Sierra Nevada summits far to the east.

I’ve visited this peak since I was a youngster and my father took us there to visit rare Bay Area snow. (The road closes these days when there is snow, but that was not the case in the past.) We also traveled there to tour the observatory and visit the telescopes, which was a powerful experience for young kids. Later as an avid and serious cyclist Mount Hamilton was a regular destination for training and other rides. I climbed the road twisting among the hills in the photograph many times, and I could descend it at speeds that would likely scare most people. Eventually I and my cyclist friends came to know the road like the backs of our hands, and as we entered one turn we would already be mentally setting up for the next couple of turns after that, trying to maintain as much speed on the descent as possible. Today when I drive the road I’m still running over the deep memory of the turns, how they bank, what lies ahead, the width of the road, as I descend… at a much more sedate and prudent speed!

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.
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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.