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Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: People, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Sports, Photographs: Yosemite

Climbing Rescue

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Climging Rescue
A helicopter hovers next to a cliff above climbers in Yosemite Valley.

Climbing Rescue. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A helicopter hovers next to a cliff above climbers in Yosemite Valley.

If you visit places like Yosemite often enough, the sight of helicopters doing rescue operations almost becomes a normal part of the experience. I saw this helicopter parked in a Valley meadow, surrounded by climbing rangers and crew, but I didn’t stop. Instead I went up the road a bit to photograph some spring trees. But soon I heard the thing take off and saw it rise up toward this face on the far side of the Valley, so I quickly swapped in a long lens and make a few photographs as it ferried climbers back and forth.

I’ve watched a few of these operations over my years visiting the park. We once witnessed a rescue off the top of a dome near Toulumne in electrical storm conditions, and a few years ago we got buzzed by a helicopter looking for a missing person in the backcountry. But the drama of “parking” the helicopter so close to the rock face caught my attention here. I kept thinking that it was great that there was no wind! If you look closely you can see a group of climbers on a ledge in the shaded vertical crack system near the right side of the photograph.

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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News, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Sports, Photographs: Yosemite

Rope Across Horsetail Fall?

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Photographing Horsetail Fall has increasingly become “the thing to do” in Yosemite Valley for quite a few photographers this time of year. Horsetail is a seasonal waterfall that drops from near the eastern end of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, and for a few weeks each winter may catch the setting sun to produce quite a visual show when the conditions are just right. I’m not going to offer a how-to for photographing Horsetail – good ones are available elsewhere, and as beautiful as the sight can be, I have a sort of “been there, done that” attitude towards it at this point.

Which is not to say that I won’t point my camera that direction if I find myself in the area! I did so for a few minutes last weekend, even though it was well before the time when the sunset show begins, and even though it was the middle of the afternoon. I happened to be photographing something else below the fall and after I finished I looked up and noticed that the flow of water over Horsetail was as strong as I’ve seen it. I had a long lens on the camera, so I pointed it up and made a few photographs.

Here is the odd thing… In the photographs made with this telephoto lens I can clearly see that a long climbing rope ascends from the right to the first ledge that the water hits, crosses the ledge, and continues its ascent to the left of the fall. It appears to be a fixed rope that someone left in place, and I can only wonder about possible explanations. Did someone have to leave it behind earlier in the season? Did someone leave it with the intention of coming back and traversing through the fall?

If it does remain much longer, there may be some disappointed photographers who find a glowing rope draped across their photographs of the fall this season…

Fixed Rope Across Horsetail Fall
Fixed Rope Across Horsetail Fall

Fixed Rope Across Horsetail Fall. Yosemite Valley, California. January 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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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.


Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Leaving Lembert Dome, Dusk

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Leaving Lembert Dome, Dusk

Leaving Lembert Dome, Dusk. Yosemite National Park, California. July 30, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Hiker leaving the summit of Lembert Dome at dusk. Tuolumne Meadows, with the Sierra crest in the background. Yosemite National Park, California.

I shot this last summer on an evening when I had just finished photographing the Sierra sunset from the top of Lembert Dome in the Tuolumne Meadows area. The “good light” had seemingly ended and I had packed up my camera, lenses, and tripod and was heading down from the peak when there was a wonderful bit of post-sunset warm, soft light… just at the moment when this lone hiker crossed this section of the granite come below me. Not having time to set up my tripod and other gear properly, I simply grabbed three frames at very low shutter speeds, and I was very pleased when I found that one of them actually turned out beautifully. In this case, I was shooting hand held at such low shutter speeds that I had to rely on the image-stabilization feature of the lens I had on my camera at that moment.

(Update#2: Since I posted this color version I was contacted about licensing the use of  a black and white version of the photograph in a print journal. There are, I think, a few lessons in this shot and this experience.

  • First, not all landscape photography is done at a sedate and leisurely pace, pondering for many minutes the intricacies of composition and so forth. Sometimes things happen so quickly that you must depend upon instincts and react quickly to a situation that only lasts a moment. In this case I could not possibly have anticipated the light or the appearance of the lone hiker – when I saw this conjunction of subjects I had no time to set up a tripod.
  • Second, sometimes traditional landscape approaches (tripod, small aperture, etc.) won’t get the shot and the adaptability of your gear may save the day… or evening. I pulled out my camera and handheld the shot using the lens that was already on the camera with image stabilization and a rather low shutter speed.
  • Third, it probably isn’t news to any one, but sometimes an image that you conceive as color may turn out to work well in black and white, and vice versa. Be flexible.

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