Tag Archives: canyon

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Canyon Walls, Plant

June 16, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone plant grows from sandstone walls deep within a Utah slot canyon

I had the opportunity to spend a significant period of time photographing in Utah back in October of 2014. Although I got a late start with Utah (only photographing there for the first time a few years ago) I have been doing my best to make up for lost time. I’ve spent between a month and a month and a half there in total over the past couple of years. During that time I have come to love autumn in the canyons. Oh, heck, I think I love autumn just about anywhere in Utah!

I walked into this canyon early on last fall’s trip. I had arrived at my first Utah stopover place the night before, looked at a map, and figured I might find something interesting in this general area. (I’m not always a careful advanced planner, preferring to wing it depending on the light and my mood.) The walk began in terrain that was more of a wash than a canyon, but before long the sandstone walls closed in and narrowed and I was walking through slots. The light in such places can be magical at the right moments, usually when the sun rises high enough in the sky to project into the upper reaches of the canyon, where it bounces and diffuses as it fills the canyon below with saturated light.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Wash and Eroded Hills

April 22, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light shines on eroded hills and a desert wash.

This was the final morning of my spring photographic excursion to Death Valley. On the last day of these visits I always seem to follow the same general ritual — I get up well before dawn (of course!) and visit one final photography location very early, then go back and break camp before leaving the park and starting the long drove back to the San Francisco Bay Area. This means that I almost always pick a familiar “sure thing” location for the last morning, and one that is not too far from wherever I camped the night before. I rarely make this a spur-of-the-moment decision, instead typically deciding ahead of time where I’ll go — there isn’t a lot of time to waste on this final, long day. On this trip I headed back to a little area not far from a familiar Death Valley icon. (I would stop at that icon, but only if the conditions turned out to be spectacularly unusual — I certainly don’t need another photograph of it otherwise, as beautiful as it is.)

I turned off the main road onto the gravel side road, slowed to a crawl, parked and got out with camera gear in hand, and quickly settled into the quiet and stillness of this place in the moments before dawn. Even though I have been to this spot many times, I’m still surprised by how quiet it is and by how few others go here. Although I know specific locations that might offer reliable and predictable photographs, once I’m here I prefer to take my time and look for and at things that I had not previously noticed. At first — and it was the case on this morning — it seems like there is little special to see, and I may momentarily wonder if I’m going to be able to find photographs. But as I slow down and begin to see, I invariably find things that I would have missed if I had not given the place some time. This photograph was the result of spotting a little path up to a higher spot — the path itself intrigued me so I followed it, and I was happy to find that it overlooked this little bit of classic Death Valley geography.

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.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Titus Canyon

April 21, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Titus Canyon narrows, Death Valley National Park

In something of a departure for me… I have named a location. Enjoy it while it lasts! ;-) The lower portion of this canyon is one of the popular destinations in Death Valley National Park, and with good reason. This section is very narrow and deep, and aside from the lack of red colored rock it might remind one in some ways of similar canyons in other places such as the Southwest. There are essentially two ways to get to this section. More than once I’ve driven to the canyon entrance, loaded up a pack with camera gear and water, and walked in. This is a great way to experience the lower canyon, which is the area with the most impressive canyon walls and narrow sections. I always see much more when I’m on foot, and there are a lot of subtle things to look for in this part of the lower canyon.

The alternative way to get here involves a fair amount of driving on a road that is rough enough that it could make some drivers uncomfortable. (It is not a place for low-slung suburban vehicles, to be sure.) The one-way road through the canyon begins in the higher country of the Amargosa Valley near the eastern boundary of the park. It crosses the flat desert terrain as it heads toward the mountains and soon begins to twist and turn through valleys, up slopes, and over ridges. A few sections might test the nerves of drivers not used to such roads, especially the sections just before and after Red Pass. Once over the pass the road drops into the canyon and begins its descent toward the Valley. Near the end the road passes through the section that you could hike into from below, a section that seems like a very improbable place for an automobile roadway — and this photograph shows part of that segment of the trip.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature

Flow Lines, Morning Light

April 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Soft early morning light illuminates curving erosion patterns of a desert gully, Death Valley National Park

Today I’m back from my annual spring photography visit to Death Valley National Park. I first visited this place a bit more than 15 years ago, though photography was not the purpose of that first trip. My first view of the Valley was magical. We had arrived the night before and set up camp in the dark at the first camping area we found, a tiny campground near below Towne Pass at the turnoff to Wildrose Canyon. I had little idea where I was nor what my surroundings looked like, as I had literally never been in this place before. Early the next morning I stepped out of my tent and was greeted by an astounding and unexpected view down into the huge and rugged landscape of this Valley, a first sight I will not forget.

Since then I have returned many times — much of that landscape has become familiar to me as I’ve pushed the boundaries of my knowledge of the place outwards in all directions. I’ve been into areas that I didn’t imagine existed on that first visit, and I’ve learned to see past the geology and geography of the place and see the human history of the park and the sometimes-hidden beauties of wildflowers and more. Today when I visit I still look for that astonishing and grand landscape, but I also slow down and stop and look for more subtle things that I surely missed nearly completely on that first visit. This little miniature landscape of curving erosion and stones and first light is one that I would have missed completely on that first visit, but which I now know can be found almost everywhere in this park once I slow down to the pace of the desert and take the time to really look.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: canyon

Canyon Walls, Plant

Wash and Eroded Hills

Titus Canyon

Flow Lines, Morning Light

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