Tag Archives: escarpment

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

From the Valley to the Crest

August 18, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

From Valley to Crest — Afternoon light and haze, clearing storm clouds, eastern Sierra Nevada

Afternoon light and haze, clearing storm clouds, eastern Sierra Nevada

In early August I was (of course!) once again in the Sierra for several days. This time the main event was to be a short backpacking trip with long-time back-country friends — a “taking it easy” trip to a beautiful group of lakes in the Rock Creek drainage. Our plan was to meet on at the trailhead or on the trail, to do the short hike to a central lake, set up a base camp, and relax and explore for a few days.

I decided to head up early, partly to have a bit of time to adapt the elevation, but also to do a bit of photography. (My backpacking partners were more “normal” people — not “abnormal” photograph-obsessed folks like me!) Arriving in the Yosemite high country at noon on a Friday in August, I did not spend much time at all trying to find a campsite there, instead heading straight over the crest and down to a less crowded spot. With camp set up, it was time to go make some photographs. Taking advantage of my east side location, I decided to head south a short distance along US 395, where I could find beautiful vistas of high desert terrain rising to the crest of the Sierra Nevada, augmented on this day by dissipating storm clouds and a bit of haze from early season wildfires.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Morning Snow, Eastern Sierra

January 23, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunrise snow along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada

This is a part of California that probably impresses newcomers as being more of a desert than anything else, with rugged high elevation sagebrush country standing in front of the rocky and even more rugged eastern escarpment of the Sierra, where the creeks and lakes and forest glades of the range’s intimate landscape are too far away to be visible. I first loved the Sierra for its alpine wilderness, and back then I was not interested in places like this, but today I find them as much part of the Sierra experience as any alpine lake.

As I do every year at about this time, I was on the “east side” for the fall aspen color. And, as happens at least once every year, I was so distracted by some other element of the terrain that I forgot about aspens for a moment and went off to photograph something else. This “something else” was a combination of things. A light morning snow storm was clearing away from the highest peaks in the early morning light of this autumn day. This light was soft on the thinning clouds and snow flurries was stronger, direct, and more stark on the foreground of sage-covered desert hills

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: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Round Valley Cottonwood Trees

January 22, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn cottonwood trees beneath the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada, Round Valley

I’ve long been captivated by this area at the base of the Sierra Nevada’s eastern escarpment not far from the town of Bishop, California. As you drive south near here you descend a very long grade toward Bishop, and at the bottom of the grade the route crosses a very large valley where the eastern edge of the range seems to retreat far to the west, and a broad valley rises from the lowlands towards much higher peaks. But along the northern edge of this valley the escarpment lives up to its name and is quite sudden and steep.

The valley seems agricultural, with cattle often grazing on the grasslands among the large cottonwood trees. In the late afternoon, and especially in fall when the trees change colors, the backlight coming over the crest lights the trees from behind and from the right point of view they can stand dramatically against the shadowed eastern slopes of the range.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Flurries, Morning

October 26, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An early autumn weather front drops morning snow flurries along the rugged Sierra Nevada crest near Mount Morrison

This is another photograph from the final morning of our September photographic trip to the eastern Sierra Nevada. We were surprised to find it snowing lightly when we work up in Mammoth that morning, since there had been no mention of such weather in the previous day’s forecast. We decided to stick with our plan of making a big loop out to the east of Mammoth Lakes and then north by a back route to Mono Lake and highway 395 for our return trip. So we headed down the road out of Mammoth Lakes in the pre-dawn near-darkness and then started out across Long Valley.

Out in the valley as dawn approached, it became clear that the atmosphere was doing some very interesting things along the eastern edge of the Sierra. At first we saw a very strong weather cell over Mammoth Lakes that appeared to be dropping quite a bit of rain or snow, even though where we were it was virtually clear overhead. So we stopped and set up to make some photographs of these conditions. We continued shooting after the first red dawn light and watched as the snow squall worked its way south along the Sierra crest. In this photograph there is light snow falling along the ridge near Mount Morrison, but since the clouds did not extend to the east, the early morning light is hitting the upper slopes of this line of peaks.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: escarpment

From the Valley to the Crest

Morning Snow, Eastern Sierra

Round Valley Cottonwood Trees

Autumn Flurries, Morning

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