Old Tree and Autumn Color, Sierra Nevada. Near Carson Pass, California. October 8, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
An old tree stands above an eastern Sierra Nevada valley full of autumn aspen color
I got a somewhat late start on first day of this year’s trip to the Sierra to photograph the annual aspen color transition. The plan was to begin in the Tahoe area, since I needed some photographs of that region, and to then work my way down the east side of the range as far as Bishop. This was to be a somewhat complicated trip, since I’m concurrently working on a number of projects, not all of which are related to this photography! For this reason and others, I wasn’t able to leave early in the morning like I usually do, but I figure that this would still get me to some of the good aspen areas by the late afternoon hours of good light.
I went into the Sierra on highway 88 and climbed toward the Sierra crest at Carson Pass. Although the west side of the crest isn’t typically the best place to look for aspens, this pass is a bit of an exception, and I saw my first colorful autumn aspens well before the pass. There were more and more of them as I got closer to the pass, and I stopped to photograph some of them in the good light from the west. Before long I crossed Carson Pass and started down the east side toward Hope Valley, an area with lots of aspen trees. My first stop was not far below the pass, where I found this weathered old roadside tree standing high above the upper valley, where aspens were changing color in the background.
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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