Tag Archives: el

Rope Across Horsetail Fall?

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.


Sunset Avalanche, Half Dome

Sunset Avalanche, Half Dome
Sunset Avalanche, Half Dome

Sunset Avalanche, Half Dome. Yosemite National Park, California. January 16, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

An avalanche breaks loose from the edge of Half Dome as sunset light falls over Yosemite Valley.

Sometimes timing is everything. But, to be honest, luck often plays a bigger part! :-)

On my way out of The Valley on a mid-January weekend, I made this spot my last stop, thinking that I wanted a photograph from this angle at sunset with snow on Half Dome. (I have a number of photographs of this location, but mostly from the warmer months of the year. ) I know this spot well enough at this point that I know pretty much exactly where to be and when to be there, and this was no exception. On the way up here I first stopped to photograph some trees on a ridge across the Valley, something I worked on more than once during this trip. When the last light left those trees I headed on up the road to this overlook and arrived perhaps a full half hour before the start of the real light show. I hung out a bit, ate a snack, and eventually set up.

I never know exactly what will happen here, believe it or not, even though I understand the process pretty well. The foreground right ridge first falls into shadow, then the shadow line begins to creep up toward the face of Half Dome and rise up the rocky slope in front of El Capitan at the left. But what the sky will do during this transition is quite variable. Sometimes the sunset simply dies out with a whimper. On other evenings the light goes through a remarkable sequence of transitions. That is what finally happened on this evening. Eventually I’ll share some of the other photographs from this evening, but for now I’ll just share a hint or two. The color of the sky behind Half Dome transitioned from blue to pink and purple and finally to a deep blue that verged on purple.

But the real surprise – and one I did not realize I had captured it until I got home and looked closely at my raw files – was that one of the images contained a sort of “Yosemite Fall” that I had never seen before, namely the “snow fall” created as a large piece of the snow field near the edge of Half Dome let loose after a day of warm sun and cascaded down the right face of the mountain… just as sunset light split the dome! I suppose this provides yet another opportunity to quote Ansel, who apparently once said, “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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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.


Four Oak Trees, El Capitan Meadow

Four Oak Trees, El Capitan Meadow
Four Oak Trees, El Capitan Meadow

Four Oak Trees, El Capitan Meadow. Yosemite Valley, California. October 31, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Four black oak trees with early autumn foliage stand in late-afternoon light at El Capitan Meadow, Yosemite Valley.

These four oak trees in El Capitan Meadow are almost iconic, having been photographed by many, many people. On this trip I stopped in El Capitan Meadow near the end of the day – this was my last major shooting location before leaving the Valley for the long trip back to the Bay Area. While there was considerably time left before sunset, because El Capitan Meadow sits to the east of some very tall cliffs, this photograph and others in the series were made just before the list direct light fell on the area. The fact that the areas closer to the cliff faces along the north side of the valley were already in shade helped set off the backlit leaves of the four trees.

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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Oak Trees, Evening, El Capitan Meadow

Oak Trees, Evening, El Capitan Meadow
Oak Trees, Evening, El Capitan Meadow

Oak Trees, Evening, El Capitan Meadow. Yosemite Valley, California. October 31, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A grove of oak trees in El Capitan Meadow illuminated by late afternoon light.

What Yosemite photographer hasn’t photographed these oaks, especially the four in the foreground? I know I can’t resist, and I’ve photographed them in every season and in conditions ranging from warm afternoons to winter mornings with snow on the ground. Here I photographed them during the last few minutes of direct light, just before the sun dropped behind ridges to the west, and after the light had already left the meadow, the forest and the Valley walls beyond.

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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