Tag Archives: backpack

Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Two Snags – Big Arroyo

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Two Snags - Big Arroyo
Two Snags – Big Arroyo. Sequoia National Park, California. August 7 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of two trailside snags above Big Arroyo with Great Western Divide in the distance, Sequoia National Park, California.

This photograph was made on Sequoia National Park’s High Sierra Trail as it climbs out of Big Arroyo and onto the Chagoopa Plateau before eventually dropping down into the depths of the Kern Canyon.

I was in full “head down and climbing the trail” mode when I almost walked right past these trailside snags, but my friend Ernie fortunately pointed them out to me. Ernie’s not really a photographer – though he takes far more great photos of fellow backpackers than I – but he notices a lot on the trail. He was the champion at running into wildlife on the August 2008 High Sierra Trail trip, typically managing to discover a couple rattlesnakes each day and on another day discovering a small mammal that the rest of us had never seen in the Sierra.

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Photographs: Sierra Nevada

High Elevation Forest Near Crabtree Meadow

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High Elevation Forest Near Crabtree Meadow

High Elevation Forest Near Crabtree Meadow. Sequoia National Park, California. August 10, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of morning light in a high elevation forest between Wallace Creek and Crabtree Meadow on the John Muir Trail, Sequoia National Park, California.

keywords: forest, tree, shadow, needle, branch, log, high, altitude, elevation, timberline, trunk, morning, light, black and white, john, muir, trail, jmt, sequoia, national park, crabtree, meadow, wallace creek, hike, backpack, camp, california, usa, stock, cone

Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Evening, Upper Hamilton Lake and Kaweah Gap

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Evening, Upper Hamilton Lake and Kaweah Gap
Evening, Upper Hamilton Lake and Kaweah Gap. Sequoia National Park, California. August 6, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Color photograph of Upper Hamilton Lake and Kaweah Gap as evening sun strikes peaks around the upper basin – Sequoia National Park, California.

Upper Hamilton Lake is located on the High Sierra Trail in Sequoia National Park, and is the traditional camping spot before climbing over Kaweah Gap on the ridge in this photograph. I arrived there on August 6, 2008 on the second day of nine-day trans-Sierra backpacking trip from Crescent Meadow to Whitney portal, and we left the next morning to climb the Gap and head to points east.

This photograph was made in the evening as the sun set, sending its light through the narrow opening of the canyon to the west toward the wall at the upper end of the lake – while the high ridge is still in sunlight the lake and surrounding slopes are already in shadow. The photograph was made from a position not more than ten or twelve feet from my campsite.

keywords: landscape, upper, hamilton, lake, kaweah, gap, great western, divide, ridge, mountain, pass, basin, cirque, water, reflection, evening, sunset, golden hour, blue, sky, clouds, forest, tree, brush, rock, talus, peak, alpine, sequoia, national park, california, usa, stock, backpack, hike, camp

Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Forest in Reflected Light, Kern River

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Kern River Forest
“Forest in Reflected Light” — Forest scene along the Kern River in Sequoia National Park, California

In the middle of my August 2008 trans-Sierra backpack trip we spent a morning walking up the 7.5 miles between Kern Hot Springs and Junction Meadow in the upper Kern Canyon. Since I’m fond of higher country I wasn’t expecting too much on this day, but I was happy to encounter a wonderful lighting situation that I’ve seen before in Yosemite and similar valleys: the western canyon walls were in full sunlight and reflecting beautiful, warm, diffuse light across the river into the shaded forest on the east side where I photographed these trees and ferns.

A bit more about this trip. I had previously done this route — the High Sierra Trail — from the western reaches of Sequoia national Park, over the Kaweahs, down into the Kern, the up and over the Sierra Crest with a side trip to Mt. Whitney before exiting at Whitney Portal. This time I went with a group of backpacking friends, and it was wonderful to revisit this landscape.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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