Tag Archives: conifer

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Trees, Snow-Covered Ledge

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Trees, Snow-Covered Ledge
A group of trees growing on a snowy ledge below Glacier Point

Trees, Snow-Covered Ledge. Yosemite Valley, California. February 26, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of trees growing on a snowy ledge below Glacier Point

Near the end of February I made a more-or-less annual winter visit to Yosemite Valley. (Not my only time to visit in winter, but I’m often there around the final weekend of this month, during the last few years to attend the opening of the annual Yosemite Renaissance exhibit.) This gave me a few days to photograph in the Valley during winter, which may be my favorite season there — when clouds can ring the Valley and, if I’m lucky, I might catch some snow.

I made this photograph on a very cold morning, photographing from an open meadow location below the face of Glacier Point, where granite ascends abruptly from behind what I’ll always think of as Camp Curry. I went to the meadow before dawn, with a plan to photograph this wall in shadow and then as the first light began to slant across it from the east. This cliff is a cold place this time of year — most of the time in shadow, dusted with snow, and with frozen water everywhere. The blue-tinged shadow light only increases the effect in this scene of a small group of trees managing to eke out an existence on an angled rock ledge.

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Mixed Forest, Brian Head

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Mixed Forest, Brian Head
Mixed aspen and conifer forest, autumn

Mixed Forest, Brian Head. Brian Head, Utah. October 5, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mixed aspen and conifer forest, autumn

Back in 2012 we made our first serious autumn photography foray into Utah, spending several October weeks traveling around the southern part of the state. Among other things, this was the first time I started to understand the differences between the patterns of California fall color that I know so well and the patterns in Utah and similar places. For me the biggest annual fall color event is the turning of the eastern Sierra aspens, which typically reaches is peak by or perhaps a bit before the middle of October. We began this trip with a much earlier than usual visit to those California mountains and, sure enough, we arrived for the very beginning of the serious color in the locations I would typically visit a week or more later. After spending just a couple of days there — I did not want to completely miss the California aspen season! — we headed east across Nevada to Utah.

Our first stop in Utah was in the Brian Head vicinity. (One draw was that the off-season lodging prices were extremely good.) I had not been here before and did not really know what to expect, though I knew that Cedar Breaks National Monument was nearby. We soon discovered that here, unlike in the Sierra Nevada, the big, high elevations aspen trees had already reached and passed their color peak, perhaps even by the end of September. Lesson learned! (We subsequently did learn that there are plenty of other fall color opportunities in the state at lower elevations, and that they can extend all the way into November.) This ridge of mixed conifers and aspens is just outside of the Brian Head area.

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: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest and Ferns

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Forest and Ferns
A bed of ferns leads to conifer trees, big leaf maples, and the cliffs of Yosemite Valley

Forest and Ferns. Yosemite Valley, California. October 29, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A bed of ferns leads to conifer trees, big leaf maples, and the cliffs of Yosemite Valley

The autumn ferns of the Sierra have fascinated me for some time, and I think of them as among the most interesting of the harbingers of fall. I recall years ago driving across the Sierra to get to the east side in October and finding the transformation of the forest floor that they bring to be fascinating, especially in the evening when they seem to almost glow among the dark trunks of trees. Autumn color in the Sierra is most certainly not just about aspens!

I photographed this bed of ferns going dormant in a small meadow in Yosemite Valley. I stopped at a popular place, but then crossed the road to walk away from that spot and spend some time wandering meadows and forest of conifers and oaks. In this slight clearing at the end of the conifers there was a remarkably lush growth of ferns around this fallen tree, with more trees and more autumn color beyond.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

High Country Aspens

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High Country Aspens
A row of autumn aspens in front of receding conifer forest and rising slopes near Sonora Pass on a Sierra Nevada fall evening

High Country Aspens. Sierra Nevada, California. September 26, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of autumn aspens in front of receding conifer forest and rising slopes near Sonora Pass on a Sierra Nevada fall evening

Although I’ve driven across Sonora Pass for years, I feel that I have perhaps neglected its photographic potential, perhaps because it is somewhat out of the way for me on many of my Sierra trips — the major Tahoe area routes are farther north, and my favorite trans-Sierra route further south is Tioga Pass through Yosemite. I have photographs from the base of the pass on the east side, but my collection of photographs from the highest reaches of the pass is very  small. With this in mind, I decided to return from this trip to the eastern Sierra by way of this pass, and I timed the traverse for the late afternoon when I thought the light might be idea.

Although this pass is not quite as high as Tioga Pass, it has a much more alpine feeling. The road is very steep in places and frequently quite narrow as it twists and turns up and down and around trees and boulders. I recall once thinking many years ago that driving this pass is about as close to the feeling of hiking the high country as one can get on a road. There are a lot of aspens along this route, but in many places they are mixed in with the conifer forest, making them a bit more difficult of a photographic subject. Finally, perhaps a couple miles east of the pass, the terrain opened up to high forests and meadows and I found a few beautiful aspen groves standing apart.

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