Tag Archives: backcountry

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lake and Mountain, Morning

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Lake and Mountain, Morning
Dawn light comes to mountain slopes above a reflecting High Sierra backcountry lake

Lake and Mountain, Morning. Hoover Wilderness Area, California. August 7, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light comes to mountain slopes above a reflecting High Sierra backcountry lake

I woke up early on the third and final morning of this pack trip — not early by photographic standards, but just before dawn, nonetheless. The rest of my party — perhaps because they are not photographers — continued to sleep in for another hour or more as I crawled out of my tent, gathered up my (downsized for this trip) camera equipment, and wandered off to see what I could see.

The sun had still not quite risen as I came to the top of a small hill above the lake, but very soon its light began to touch the highest peaks and stream across the shoulder of the large peak towering above the opposite shoreline of the lake. Sometimes the scale of a subject such as this mountain seems more obvious to me when I choose to not include all of it, so I chose to crop tightly enough to not show the peak — or the relatively uninteresting plain blue sky above it. (My theory is that a photograph framed so that the entire subject isn’t visible can sometimes produce an impression that the subject is so large that it cannot be contained within the frame.) As I made this exposure the first light was hitting the rocky face of the upper slopes of the mountain, and that light was reflected in the undisturbed early morning surface of the lake.

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

Shoreline and Evening Reflection

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Shoreline and Evening Reflection
Sunset colors reflected from high peaks along the rocky shoreline of a backcountry High Sierra lake

Shoreline and Evening Reflection. Hoover Wilderness Area, California. August 6, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset colors reflected from high peaks along the rocky shoreline of a backcountry High Sierra lake

The second evening of this brief eastern Sierra pack trip was much different from the first. On the previous day, as we began our hike, it was already cloudy early in the morning. By mid-afternoon it was apparent that we were in for some weather — thunder clouds were building and spreading across the sky, and soon we began to hear distant thunder. I was at the back of the pack as we headed towards a high lake. I switched from boots to water shoes to wade a river, briefly considering whether to make camp right there before crossing. As I reached the other side and got back into my trail shoes the light sprinkles began. Another ten minutes up the trail I came to a second, deeper and faster crossing just as the rain began in earnest. A choice: Spend 10-15 minutes doing the footwear switch and getting into full rain gear for self and pack? Or make a stand right there and set up camp? I chose the latter, quickly finding a tiny flat (enough) spot to set up my tent in the rain — always an “interesting” task! — and then climbing inside. It rained for the next three hours!

The next morning — the day I made this photograph — I got up slowly, waiting until a few minutes before sun reached my camp and I could start the work of drying things out. I finally packed and headed on up the trail, planning to rejoin my group at the lake where we planned to camp on the second night. Clouds began to appear once again, and it briefly looked like the weather might repeat the show of the previous afternoon, but by the time I arrived at this lake, found the rest of my party, and set up camp… the skies were clearing, and we ended up having a beautiful and peaceful evening. After dinner I took my camera equipment and headed to a high point over the shoreline to photograph. Our camp was a distance above the shoreline at the left side of the photograph, and from this spot I could trace the rocky edge of the water towards the far side of the lake. The blue of evening light and reflected sky contrasts with the warm, saturated color of the reflection from peaks still in the evening sun.

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, Photographs: Yosemite

Snag and Forest

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Snag and Forest
A solitary snag stands among forest trees in the Yosemite backcountry

Snag and Forest. Yosemite National Park, California. September 4, 2014. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A solitary snag stands among forest trees in the Yosemite backcountry

A group of us, a band of photographers, spent a week in a Yosemite backcountry area back in the summer of 2014. With the plan of spending a week doing extensive photography of one or two areas, our equipment was brought in by pack train — we just had to walk in carrying our photographic equipment. We settled in for a few days at an isolated lake, and then we moved to a more populated area for the final few days of our visit.

The first location was a lovely little lake, set in a broad depression on a ridge above a very large valley. This spot provided us all sorts of photographic subjects — intimate landscapes, big views across the canyon to high peaks, and the forests and meadows and rocks spread around the lake itself. On this morning I had climbed up slanting granite slabs to reach a higher area, and here I found this solitary snag standing among living trees, and backed by forest running on up into the higher peaks.

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: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Colorful Granite Cliff and Trees

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Colorful Granite Cliff and Trees
A colorful High Sierra granite cliff and trees in soft light

Colorful Granite Cliff and Trees. Yosemite National Park, California. September 9, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A colorful High Sierra granite cliff and trees in soft light

Sitting here on a late-winter day, this late September week spent photographing in the Yosemite back-country seems so far away. (At the same time, as I watch the inevitable progress of the seasons, the upcoming summer season seems closer and closer!) Three photographers headed out to a back-country lake, where we set up a base-camp for something like nine days of photography. It might seem like photographing in one tiny area for a week might exhaust its possibilities. In fact, at the start of such a trip I often harbor such fears — but by the end of every one of them I am again reminded that it virtually never works that way. The more time spent looking in such a place, there more there is to see, and at the end of such a trip there are, inevitably, things left to be photographed on the next visit.

Not far from our camp was a rocky area that we often crossed in order to make our way around the perimeter of a nearby lake and to get to areas a bit further away. After climbing slabs the route dropped into the lower extent of a deep gully traveling down from higher terrain, and eventually I began to know these rocks and this gully very well. We had “interesting” weather during our stay, and on the day I made this photograph the light was muted by various factors including clouds and wildfire smoke.

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.