Tag Archives: backpack

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Family, Sierra Meadow

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Family, Sierra Meadow
A mother and sons in a High Sierra meadow near the MInarets

Family, Sierra Meadow. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. July 4, 2006.© Copyright 2006 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A mother and sons in a High Sierra meadow near the Minarets

For some reason that I cannot quite recall, not too long ago I took an excursion through some old photographs from about a decade ago, from a time just after I had made most of the transition from film to digital photography. (This past week a friend asked if i had photographs from a 2005 trip, so I’ve been digging into this old work even more.) Back in these days I was slightly past my “wonder if digital is all that?” stage, and I was moving resolutely away from film and toward digital technologies. The results were becoming quite usable, though I was still shooting landscapes with a cropped sensor camera!

On this trip I joined up with my brother, his wife, and their three young sons. Although I had taken all of my children into the backcountry when they were young, those days were largely behind my by this point and I had almost forgotten what it is like to backpack with children. And my many solo trips back in these days had made me perhaps hyper self-reliant, to the point that I tended to let everyone fend for himself or herself. I recall being reminded of this by my brother who was bit less than pleased when I crossed a creek flooding portions of the meadow in this photograph and then kept going! Look closely and you may be able to see some of the rest of my party down in that meadow as twilight falls.

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: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Three Backpackers, Alpine Terrain

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Three Backpackers, Alpine Terrain
Three Backpackers, Alpine Terrain

Three Backpackers, Alpine Terrain. Sequoia National Park, August 2, 2010.© Copyright 2010 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three backpackers hiking above timberline in the Southern Sierra Nevada wilderness, approach an alpine lake

This photograph is a bit unusual for me to share in that it isn’t particularly about the image as a photograph but more about the photograph as a record of a place and a time. It comes from a backpacking trip with friends into a remote section of my favorite part of the Sierra Nevada, the high and wild areas of the Southern Sierra within and around the Kern River’s upper drainage. This is an area that is not easily accessible — certainly not a lightweight weekend trip! — and where the terrain is unlike that elsewhere in the range. There is a huge and very high elevation plateau here, at or above timberline, with expansive views to multiple surrounding ranges, all of which feature peaks reaching to and above the 13,000′ to 14,000′ range. Any access route requires a long walk or passage over very difficult terrain, and sometimes involves both.

We entered the area by way of two high passes, one of which is over 13,000′ high, dropped onto the plateau, and walked to a favorite timberline camping location by a stream. (We would follow this stream up to the crest to exit via another high and difficult pass a few days later.) From here we left the main route and headed off into an area that none of us has visited before, an area with few trails and few visitors. This photograph evokes, for me at least, a number of sensations and recollections: what it is like to pass over difficult and nearly trail-less country with a group of like-minded friends, the sense of vast space in these open and rugged places, and the freeing feeling of passing over this country into places that I have not previously visited. Such high, open, rugged terrain is not for everyone — but I love it!

Our group has been into this area several times, and over a period of decades I had passed though many times.

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.

Morning Musings

Backcountry Photography, Two Ways (Morning Musings 9/24/14)

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Peak and Tarn, Sunrise
Peak and Tarn, Sunrise *

The subject of selecting (and carrying!) photographic equipment for backpacking trips came up in a recent conversation. There’s a lot I could say about this, since I’ve backpacked for decades and often prefer to do certain kinds of landscape photography while traveling on foot, mostly in the Sierra. Actually, I not only could say a lot about this — I have! An extensive article at this website goes over a lot of important things related to combining backpacking and serious landscape photography: My Backpacking Photography Kit. Take a look at the article if you want a lot of details.

The main issues involve how to incorporate the weight/bulk of serious camera equipment into a load that also includes your food and shelter and much more, how to best make use of the photography equipment in the backcountry, how to approach the process of photographing “out there,” which equipment to use, and a few other things. Basically, unless you are young and very fit and willing to accept a great deal of pain from a huge load… you are likely to have to make some compromises and adjustments in both the backpacking equipment and the photographic equipment you carry. The good news is that the compromises are quite doable, and that you can still make fine photographs in areas that you probably can’t get to in any other way.

A related question had to do with a different way to get into the back county that I’ve used during the past two seasons, namely support by pack animals. Left to my own devices, I probably would not have tried this — at least not for a few more years! However, I’ve recently had the wonderful opportunity to join some other photographers who have been traveling into (mostly) the Yosemite backcountry for nearly 15 years every summer to make beautiful photographs. (See a video about them here and take a look at their beautiful book: “First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite’s Wilderness.”) When they started, large format and medium format film cameras were the norm for this sort of serious work, more or less necessitating pack train support if they were to stay out for any length of time — and they often went out for a week or two at a time.

Last year was my first time being part of a pack train supported backcountry trip, and I initially felt almost a bit guilty about it — as a person who has enjoyed walking all over the Sierra backcountry for decades. Continue reading Backcountry Photography, Two Ways (Morning Musings 9/24/14) →

Not Photography

An Incomplete Trip

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(This is the first in what might become an occasional series of posts having little or nothing to do with photography—the “Not Photography” series for those of you who keep track of blog categories.)

A simple photograph of Duck Lake that I saw posted elsewhere today reminded me of a backpacking trip I did some years back, so I thought I’d tell a bit of that story here. It is not a story about photography, believe it or not, though I will add one gratuitous photograph “just because.” ;-)

Lakes Below Duck Pass, Afternoon Showers
Lakes Below Duck Pass, Afternoon Showers

Lakes Below Duck Pass, Afternoon Showers. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. August 5, 2005. © Copyright 2005 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

I have backpacked for decades, almost entirely in California’s Sierra Nevada, visiting almost every portion of the range, though not by any means every place in this sierra of almost infinite variety. A few years back I made a rough tally of the total number of “trail days,” not counting non-backpacking trips, and it totaled up to something closer to two years than to one—and I’ve continued to backpack since that time.

Over the years I have covered the better part of the famous John Muir Trail (also called the “JMT”), but in pieces and spread over many trips. The trips have ranged from a couple of days in length, when I perhaps only touched a very short segment of the trail, up to several of two weeks or longer when I spent days along its length, often hiking alone but sometimes with friends, and on two memorable trips with my wife Patty. I’ve been over some sections quite a few times, including several areas in the Southern Sierra of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks and a many in and around Yosemite. A few segments begin to feel like old friends when I return to them.

But there is one section that I have not yet covered. It stretches from Purple Lake to about the Muir Trail Ranch. 

Continue reading An Incomplete Trip →