Tag Archives: great western divide

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Into the Kaweahs

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Into the Kaweahs
The High Sierra Trail on the approach to Kaweah Gap, Sequoia National Park.

Into the Kaweahs. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

The High Sierra Trail on the approach to Kaweah Gap, Sequoia National Park.

There are some backcountry adventures in my future this summer. One involves setting up a Sierra backcountry basecamp for some serious wilderness photography. Another is a shorter trip with a group of friends that I’ve joined for backpack trips for decades — since before 1990. One way I get myself in the right frame of mind for these trips is by revisiting earlier adventures. Recently I’ve been looking over a collection of photographs from a major trip that I did with the latter group a decade-and-a-half ago. This photograph comes from that trek.

Back then we managed a few quite long trips — up to a couple of weeks. This trip lasted about a week and a half as we backpacked the High Sierra Trail from west to east, concluding with a Mt. Whitney ascent before exiting at Whitney Portal. There’s some significant up and down on the route — it crosses the rugged Kaweah range, drops deep into Kern Canyon, and then climbs again to cross Whitney Trail Crest. This photograph is from the spectacular climb toward Kaweah Gap from the west. (If you look very closely you may be able to spot one of my fellow hikers.)

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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Snags and Mountains

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Snags and Mountains
Trailside snags to the east of the Great Western Divide in the Sequoia National Park backcountry

Snags and Mountains. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trailside snags to the east of the Great Western Divide in the Sequoia National Park backcountry

This is another of the photographs from the 2008 trip that I mentioned in an earlier post — a trans-Sierra crossing with friends via the High Sierra Trail. The route, while less known that the John Muir Trail (and shorter) crosses the Sierra from west to east, connecting the west side in Sequoia National Park with Mount Whitney and then Whitney Portal on the east side. The route provides a tremendous cross-section of the Sierra. It starts not far from middle-elevation redwood groves on the west side, follows the gigantic canyon of the Kaweah River to cross the Great Western Divide at Kaweah Gap, drops down into Big Arroyo to reach the depths of Kern Canyon, follows the Kern upstream, climbs steeply to the John Muir Trail, passes through the alpine boundary and then into alpine country to ascend Mount Whitney, and ends with the immense descent from the crest to Whitney Portal.

I made this photograph in the Big Arroyo section of the trail. We had cleared Kaweah Gap and camped in the valley below and were climbing above the Big Arroyo canyon in preparation for a short side-trip to Moraine Lake. This low ridge provided extensive views down Big Arroyo, up into the Kaweahs to our left and behind us, and across the canyon to the Great Western Divide.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Crossing Kaweah Gap

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Crossing Kaweah Gap
The High Sierra Trail crosses alpine terrain near Kaweah Gap

Crossing Kaweah Gap. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The High Sierra Trail crosses alpine terrain near Kaweah Gap

I have been reviewing my older archives of raw files recently, partly because it simply is important to do so from time to time, and partly because I’m between locations and looking for additional images to work on. Any time I go back through the older files I find things that are interesting, and occasionally I even find some excellent photographs that I overlooked the first time around.

This photograph comes from 2008. To me it seems more interesting as a record of a particular place and a particular event than on a purely photographic basis. (I could have wished for a more interesting sky!) This was my second crossing of the High Sierra Trail, which we followed from the west side of Sequoia National Park, across the entire range, to the summit of Mount Whitney, and then down to Whitney Portal. On this trip I traveled with a group of long-time backcountry friends… unlike the first time I did this trip perhaps 25 years earlier, when I did it with my wife. I made this photograph from the top of Kaweah Gap, the pass through the Great Western Divide before dropping into Big Arroyo. The photograph looks back to the west, across the trail we had ascended to reach this point.

See top of this page for Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information and more.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

The Kaweahs

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The Kaweah
Ridge and Waterfall in the Kaweah Range near Kaweah Gap on the Great Western Divide.

The Kaweahs. © Copyright 2008 G Dan Mitchell— all rights reserved.

Ridge and Waterfall in the Kaweah Range near Kaweah Gap on the Great Western Divide.

This photograph comes from the High Sierra Trail, an east-west route across the Sierra between the west slopes of Sequoia National Park and Mount Whitney on the eastern Sierra crest. (Although it is technically not part of the route, I regard the final ascent to Whitney on a lateral trail and the descent from the crest to Whitney Portal to be part of the route.) While the north-south John Muir Trail has rightfully become relatively well-known, the High Sierra Trail is not as popular — though in many ways it is the same league. It covers an extraordinary route, climbing from the forested and gradually rising west side slopes up the immense canyon of the Kaweah River, crossing Kaweah Gap in spectacular fashion, descending Big Arroyo to the grand canyon of the Kern River, which if follows north to Junction Meadow before ascending once again to join the John Muir Trail heading south and then finally climb to Whitney Trail crest.

The trail up into the Kaweahs is stunning, with remarkably rugged and alpine scenery on the ascent from the west. It is, frankly, as impressive as anything else in the range. This section climbs the cirque above a popular lake destination, rising on a trail that follows an improbably route high into the mountains in the photograph before turning to cross Kaweah Gap after passing through a garden of small meadows and rocky tarns.

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.