Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Mosquitos, Too.

July 11, 2008 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Just back from a few days in the slightly smoky (nothing compared to the rest of California) Yosemite high country in the Young Lakes area. At the moment I’m wading through hundreds of emails that came in while I was gone – so if you emailed me you can expect a reply before too long.

The three Young Lakes are at about 10,000′ and a one day hike in from Tuolumne Meadows in the Yosemite NP. I’ve the area quite a few times in the past, usually in late-August though about mid-October but this is the first time I’ve gotten out there in early July. I was looking forward to photographing a particular panorama of the Cathedral range from a beautiful lupine-filled high meadow where the trail crosses Dingley Creek. It was beautiful, but about a week shy of being “lupine-filled” and the brownish haze floating up from the Central Valley was not quite what I had in mind. Maybe next time!

About those mosquitos… Has anyone else noticed that the intensity of the Sierra wildflower displays is almost perfectly proportional to the density of the mosquitos? Until this trip I had three Really Awful Mosquito stories I used to tell – two from the Sierra and one from The Yukon.

Now I have four. They were awful at the lower Young Lake, which isn’t surprising considering the much of the shoreline is essentially a bog. I spent about 13 hours in my bivy sack the first evening/night to escape them, and the next morning thought I’d see if the middle and upper lakes were better. They weren’t. I finally got a bit of relief by climbing a good distance above the upper lake, but then it was time to descend.

Although photo opportunities were somewhat limited by the smoke, I’m hopeful that I’ll have a few to post from this trip before long.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Yosemite Falls and Glacier Point

July 11, 2008 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yosemite Valley and Yosemite Falls early on a hazy spring evening, with Glacier Point outcropping in the foreground. (black and white version – color version will be posted tomorrow.)

Note: It seems a bit ironic that this photograph would appear from the queue on the day I return from a Yosemite trip that was very much affected by the terrible wildfire smoke covering much of California right now. While this photograph depended on some haze, it sure would not have looked like this yesterday!

Double irony: As I shot this very interesting and hazy scene, there were lots of other photographers there firing away at the obvious – and not too interesting – view of Half Dome to the right. Always good to look around and see what else is there to shoot! :-)

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Ansel’s Tree

July 10, 2008 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

This is all that remained in 2008 of the Jeffrey Pine on Sentinel Dome that was the subject of the famous Ansel Adams photograph,”Jeffrey Pine, Sentinel Dome.” Somewhere I even have my early attempts at trying to do the “Ansel Adams thing” with my black and white film camera when I was much younger, featuring one or more photographs of this very tree, while it was still alive. Trust me, if you are a Sierra Nevada landscape photographer of a certain age, you knew this tree and probably visited it.

I photographed this close-up “portrait” many years after the tree died, while on a quick hike over to the summit of Sentinel Dome along the Glacier Point Road in 2008. Things change slowly in the Sierra, but they do inevitably change. This is now, objectively speaking, another dead snag atop a Yosemite granite dome — however, this snag has achieved a sort of iconic status. Yet, perhaps there will eventually be another, maybe even the younger tree seen in the background beyond the dead stump.

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Photographs: People, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Two Hikers on Sentinel Dome

July 9, 2008 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sentinel Dome Hikers Above Yosemite Valley

Two hikers enjoy the panoramic view from Sentinel Dome above Yosemite Valley – Yosemite National Park

On this early season day back on 2008 I drove up the road to Glacier Point, stopping alone the way to make the short lateral hike out to the summit of Sentinel Dome. Sentinel is a classic viewpoint in Yosemite, and was made even more famous by the well-known iconic “Jeffrey Pine” photograph by Ansel Adams, featuring a lone, rugged, wind-bent tree that grew for years on that summit, backed by distant peaks of the high Sierra. (That tree died years ago, though its stump remains and is still picturesque… and a reminder that time passes. Another reminder for me — when I was a child my family visited this dome and that tree while it was still living.)

On this visit I took the newer trail that replaced the old (and environmentally insensitive) trail from a parking lot on the lower reaches of the dome, and arrived on the summit to reacquaint myself with the spot after a long absence. As I photographed on the summit, this young couple hiked to the top and settled in on this rock to take in the spectacular view into the canyon below.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Mosquitos, Too.

Yosemite Falls and Glacier Point

Ansel’s Tree

Two Hikers on Sentinel Dome

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