Tag Archives: dixie

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

Aspen Forest

February 21, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Tall autumn aspen trees stretch across mountain landscape of Dixie National Forest

Generally speaking, aspen trees don’t grow like this much in my home state of California. On a two-week visit to Southern Utah’s beautiful wild and protect lands back in 2012 we entered the state from the west and drove up into the mountains around Brian Head and Cedar Breaks National Monument, where we spent a few early October days poking around, exploring, and discovering autumn color. (Utah aspen color comes a bit earlier than Sierra Nevada aspen color, and it was reaching the end of its run when we arrived.) One afternoon we simply decided, for no particular reason that I can recall, to investigate a gravel road that headed of to the south from a main route, and before long we ended up among the tall, straight trees of this beautiful aspen forest.

For all of its beauty, much of which has been preserved in national parks, monuments, and forests, there are political forces in Utah that want to destroy these beautiful places that belong to all Americans. Rather than saving and protecting the beauties of their state, they want to give the resources away for the short-term benefit of special interests who will use up the land and walk away. (Take a look at the legacy of the Uranium mining around Moab if you need example of a precedent.) There are many ways to fight back and work to protect these lands. One group doing good work on behalf of the Utah wild land resources is the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. They could use your support right about now.

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

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

Aspen Grove, Old Road

November 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

An old dirt road winds into the heart of an aspen grove in full autumn color, Dixie National Forest, Utah

This is another of the “could have been anywhere” photographs, both because little scenes like this can be found all over the American West and because it is a scene that I simply happened to notice while passing by. So, the specific location is most certainly unimportant, though I’ll say that it was along a gravel road running through a section of the national forest in roughly the Zion/Cedar City area, a road that we had turned up more or less randomly and then explored for perhaps a couple of hours before turning back. The goal of that little drive had been to get into or as close as possible to some extensive forests of colorful aspen trees that we had seen from a distance. We succeeded.

There is something evocative on a number of levels about a simple scene like this one – with factors including the literal and subjective aspects of the changing season, the image of the small road disappearing into the grove as it wanders off to an unknown place, and the light of autumn filtered through the golden canopy of aspen leaves. If you don’t pay careful attention when you are there you might miss it, but the golden color suffuses the entire understory when the light is just right. (Photographers and painters may notice this sort of thing more than most people, since we/they are used to dealing with the otherwise blue coloration of the shadow light.) This sort of scene is extremely transitory. While we can permit ourselves to believe that both the green time of summer and the snowy time of winter are relatively permanent, no such illusion is possible during the brief span of literally a few days when the aspen color comes to these groves – they are different every day, and sometimes you can literally see the color going away as the wind blows down the leaves.

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: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Boulder Mountain Aspens and Distant Peak

November 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

A distant peak in alpenglow above the fall aspen color on Boulder Mountain, Utah.

We had anticipated the huge aspen groves on the flanks of Boulder Mountain as we approached on highway 12 from the west, having seen these trees earlier in the year, last April, when we crossed the mountain in spring before the new leaves appeared. We weren’t sure what we would find since, a) Boulder Mountain is high and b) we had seen high elevations aspens earlier during the trip that had almost completely lost their leaves. As we climbed toward the mountain from the town of Boulder, we began to encounter aspen color, but as we climbed it was apparent that we had missed the most colorful phase of this years transition.

That was OK, though. Even a bit pre- or post-peak, the aspen colors can still be spectacular. We stopped at the first place where we could see large aspen groves leading on up the incline toward the higher portions of the mountain and made some photographs. Then we continued on, rounding the shoulder of the mountain to find some very large and still quite colorful groves ahead of us. Although the light was starting to fade as the end of the day approached and as high clouds moved overhead, it seemed worthwhile to try to photograph these trees with a long lens. I continued shooting through sunset and soon the last direct sun left the trees and the more distant mountains. Here there is still a bit of light on the highest peaks to the east, seen faintly through the haze.

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

Aspen Grove, Evening

November 4, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A ridgetop aspen grove in full autumn color, Dixie National Forest, Utah

This is another photograph that resulted from a more or less chance drive up a back road that I happened to spot while out looking for color, and the particular location of the photograph is anything but iconic – in fact, I’m betting that this grove of aspens is rarely photographed, given its someone “off the beaten track” location in a place without even a recognizable name. Essentially, we had turned off onto an interesting side road and started driving up into the mountains. A bit earlier we had stopped to photograph incredibly colorful aspens and other trees before moving on.

As we continued on up this climb, we became aware of time issues – mainly because I had an idea about photographing another specific location at sunset, and that location was still a good drive away from here. So when we came to an intersection along the gravel road, it seemed like a fine place to stop, look around, and consider heading back the in the direction from which we had come. As we pulled over we began to see several interesting things here. First, nearby there was a little old track leading into the aspen forest. (A photograph of that subject will appear here later.) Then another side road nearby started to look interesting, so we drove a short distance along it until we had a panoramic view of the mountains leading toward Cedar Breaks. Here we turned around, and drove the short distance back to that intersection, and I though that this row of colorful aspens, set along the edge of the ridge and fronted by a bit of meadow, looked interesting enough to photograph – and when I saw the faint clouds line up in the low spot between the trees I had to photograph the scene in this soft, overcast light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: dixie

Aspen Forest

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Aspen Grove, Old Road

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Boulder Mountain Aspens and Distant Peak

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Aspen Grove, Evening

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

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