Tag Archives: canyon

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Rugged Coastline, Fog

August 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning fog clears from mountains above Soberanes Canyon along the rugged Big Sur coastline

This may be a familiar scene to people who are familiar with the upper section of California’s Big Sur coast below Monterey, where steep coastal mountains drop to the shoreline and where the climate oscillates on the boundary between sun and fog. This time I visited on a day when it was hot inland on the other side of the coastal mountains — it was perhaps 30 degrees color on the ocean side.

The scene is in a very specific area close to Soberanes Canyon, but it exemplifies scenes that can be found all along this spectacular coastline. Soberanes Canyon is a popular stopping place, with access to the ocean and to trails up into the steep canyon which extends to the left below the fog-shrouded summit near the top of this photograph. This section of the shoreline is not as high as some other sections in the area, but it is extremely rugged, with a steep, rocky bluff and scores of rocky sea stacks.

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

Plants, Canyon Wall

June 15, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Plants grow from thin cracks in the rock wall of a desert canyon, Death Valley National Park

I found this little scene in a well-known Death Valley Canyon, where the walls become vertical, hundreds of feet high, and quite close together. Canyons like this are some strange combination of beautiful — with soft light, colorful rock, shade — and harsh — with the clear evidence of flooding that periodically sweeps through and rearranges everything, against a backdrop of more typical aridity, and a terrain almost entirely consisting of rock.

In these places I am always intrigued by where and how plant life manages to survive. This is nowhere more true than in such canyons in Death Valley National Park, where the usual challenges are made worse by extreme heat and dryness. Here two kinds of plants have managed to find a foothold, but in must be a very tenuous one. The grow from thin cracks in solid rock, a good distance above whatever water comes during the periodic flooding of the wash, in an environment in which the light is most often muted yet in which extreme temperatures are common for much of the year.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Ghost Towns, Photographs: Southern California

Rusting Building, Leadfield

June 3, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A rusting corrugated building, one of the few remaining structures at the ghost town of Leadfield, California

This is one of the few standing structures remaining from the boom town of Leadfield, in the backcountry of Death Valley National Park, in the Grapevine Mountains more or less midway between the Beatty, Nevada area and the main Death Valley. The standard story is that this town was the result of one of the biggest swindles and scams in the mining history of the area, and the story is often told of the main promoter salting the mine with ore brought in from other locations and producing brochures featuring boats on the Amargosa River… which is typically completely dry. In the process of preparing this photograph to share I did a bit of reading, and it seems like the story might not be quite so simple nor so dramatic. Apparently there was a history of prospecting and mining in this area before the town was created in the mid-1920s, and lead and perhaps silver were actually mined from the place. A range of problems led to its downfall—the distance the ore needed to be transported, problems with the sale of shares in the mines—but it may not be true that the mine itself was essentially just a scam.

This building is well-known to those who have visited the place, as it is one of two buildings that still stand. Both are located near the entrance to one of the mine shafts, and it seems likely that this was not a residence but rather some building related to mine operations. Today it is a mere shell, but I find it amazing that it still stands nearly 90 years after the “town” (which apparently consisted largely of tents) was abandoned. Even more amazing is to stand at this spot and look out at the surrounding landscape—a rugged and uncompromising mountainous desert terrain—and imagine what it must have been like to live and work in such a place.

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

Curves, Desert Canyon

May 18, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Small dry plants grow in a curving crack in a two-toned desert canyon, Death Valley National Park

Passing through this deep and narrow canyon, I always watch the rock walls for little odds and ends of shape and form and color and occasional surprising bits of vegetation. If you had asked me about this section of canyon after my first passage some years ago, I might well have mentioned how narrow and deep it is and perhaps how dusty. I might have commented on the way the bottom remains in shade even in the midday heat. But repeated visits have shown me that there is much more to see, and the fact that I still see new things on every visit tells me that there is far more yet to be discovered.

On one hand this is a pretty plain photograph of some rocks with cracks running through them. On the other hand, I think there are some stories behind the scent that are interesting to contemplate. At least I think so! If you look closely you will see some very dry plants that have grown in this curving crack. It is hard to imagine a more inhospitable place for a plant to grow—perhaps a dozen feet up the nearly solid rock wall of an arid and hot desert canyon. Yet somehow these plants found a way, as did and do many other plants throughout this desert landscape. Behind the small, delicate, and even intimate element of these plants is the backdrop of a small section of a massive rock wall that towers out of sight above the frame of the photograph. Here is a boundary between two sorts of rock—I’m not enough to a geologist to make technical observations, but I do note that the upper layer is darker and more solid while the lower is lighter and has more cracks in its surface. From the upper left a crack follows the junction of the two rock layers, but for some reason the crack leaves the junction and curves back upwards into the darker rock, and it is in this surprising bit of geological dissonance that the small plants took root.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: canyon

Rugged Coastline, Fog

Plants, Canyon Wall

Rusting Building, Leadfield

Curves, Desert Canyon

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