Tag Archives: forest

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwoods in Sun

June 29, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A beam of filtered sunlight illuminates redwood trees deep in Prairie Creek Redwood State Park

I had a portion of one day to spend at Prairie Creek Redwood State Park. I could easily have spent more time there, but I wanted to make first visits to several of the redwood parks, so I saved this one for my last day in the area. Arriving at the park my first subject wasn’t redwoods — instead it was a remarkable grove of alder trees. I finished there and moved on into the center of the park, looking for a particular trail that I thought might have some rhododendron blooms. (It turned out that I was probably a few days early for that.)

I arrived at the trailhead, shouldered my camera pack, and started walking… slowly. While I can hike efficiently and cover distance, when I photograph my speed slows profoundly, and what I call hiking might more accurately be described as ambling. As I wandered up this trail, following it up into a redwood-filled valley, the light constantly changed. High fog was breaking up, and one minute it would be bright (too bright for photograph) and then next minute the clouds muted the light. I stopped at this spot where I could look across the valley and focus on a spot many feet up the trunks of the trees. I waited for the clouds to block the sun and mute the light before making a few photographs.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Rocky Shoreline And Spray

June 26, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Spray from surf mutes a rocky Northern California shoreline scene

This rocky and exposed beach, open to the Northern California Pacific Ocean, first caught my attention as I headed north on the first day of my visit to redwood country. I had made the long drive up the Central Valley, the long traverse out to the coast at Eureka/Arcata, and then traveled further north to the redwoods on my way to my final destination in Crescent City. Perhaps unexpectedly, in many spots along this coastline you don’t actually see the ocean or the shoreline itself — the route tends to be inland a ways and/or travel through forests. So when the road came around a bend near sunset and arrived at this spot, where the waves are literally only feet from the edge of the road, it made quite an impression. I stopped briefly but did not see a photograph at that time, and I travelled on.

Several days later, as I departed the Redwood National and State Parks area (and after making a final stop at Prairie Creek State Park), I again came down a hill to this beach. I stopped again, but this time the conditions were quite different. There was active surf coming onshore, and the waves had stirred up a thin, low fog that hugged the coast. Overhead higher clouds indicated the passage of a weather front. From this spot it was easy to see how littered this coastline is with the boulders and sea stacks that are left behind as the ocean erodes the shore.

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

Photographs: Coastal Redwoods, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Redwood National & State Parks

Redwoods Great And Small

June 25, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Dense Northern California redwood forest containing both old-growth and young trees

I’ve lived on the fringes of California’s coastal redwoods ever since my family moved to the state when I was four-years-old. For years we did weekend trips to places like Big Basin Redwoods State Park, often hiking through the trees and beyond. So I have always been familiar with these extraordinarily tall trees and with the special forests they inhabit. However, it wasn’t until much later that I understood how truly rare the original old-growth forests are. I recently read that only 5% of the original forest was left mostly untouched — meaning that 95% of the trees (19 out of 20!) were cut down during a fairly short period, mostly in the 20th century. This was an astounding example of where greed can push humankind, and we can reasonably imagine that without intervention all of the old-growth forests would have been lost forever. If that greed had gotten its way, you would have to reimagine scenes like this one with only the slender trees on the right, because certain parties would have cut up every accessible tree like the one on the left.

Today it seems bizarre to recall the strong objections to saving these remnants back when the Redwood National Park was first proposed. Even conserving parts of the last 5% of the ancient forests seemed to be a bridge to far for interests blinded by their long-term investments in a nearly depleted natural resource, and they fought bitterly against that parks. There are several lessons in this. This was not isolated resistance to conservation — it has been the pattern with the creation of essentially all of our great American parks and other efforts to protect wilderness and natural areas. There are [i]always[/i] a few very loud voices shrieking that the protection of a few last remnants of America’s great landscape will ruin their economy. (Witness the Utah minority today working to undo national monuments.) However, now that our park system is well over a century old, it is plainly obvious that virtually every single protected area is regarded as a treasure and virtually no sane person would argue that we did the wrong thing by protecting them.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Mouth of the Klamath

June 23, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening fog at the mouth of the Klamath River and the Northern California Coastline

The first day of my early June visit to the Redwood National and State Parks area was largely devoted to the very long drive up from the San Francisco Bay Area. I got an early start — always important to at least try to get out of the Bay Area early on commute days! — and was in Redding by late morning. While that is certainly far enough north it isn’t far enough west, and a three-hour drive to the coast was still ahead of me, plus perhaps another hour north along the coast to my lodgings in Crescent City.

After so much inland driving, it was a relief to finally reach the coast in the Eureka/Arcata area and to then turn north toward my destination. I lingered a bit in the Klamath River area. I feel a bit of a connection to this river as I have spent some time photographing birds in the area where it crosses the California-Oregon border. I didn’t know this area around the river’s mouth at all — I just knew that the low hills and coastal light were beautiful. I crossed the river on a long bridge, passed by various businesses clustered near its north end, and soon found a promising road out to the hills just to the north, from which there is a panoramic view back across the rivers itself and the hills and coast to the south.

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G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: forest

Redwoods in Sun

Rocky Shoreline And Spray

Redwoods Great And Small

Mouth of the Klamath

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