Eastern Sierra Lake, Evening. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Early evening light on a high country Sierra Nevada lake in the Hoover Wilderness.
A few weeks ago I decided to head to the eastern Sierra for a few days to get up into the high country. The main idea was to do a sort of pre-flight check for some potential backpacking, but I was also interested in photography, of course. I ended up camping at the end of an east side road that departs US 395 north of Yosemite. Despite the number of wildfires in California, I was lucky and the winds blew the right way to give me mostly clear skies. On this afternoon I decided to just hike up into the drainage above the road end to see what I would find.
Because I was looking for late-day light I didn’t start up the trail until mid-afternoon — my plan was to arrive at the high point when the light was getting good, make photographs, and then return by nightfall. After many years of hiking such terrain, this route felt familiar even though it was my first time on this trail. I passed a lake, following a trail through trees along its shoreline, and then climbed again, crossing a rocky ridge before another lake came into view. Eventually I came to my favorite sort of Sierra landscape — flat, meadowy areas with glaciated granite and small trees, with water flowing and peaks above. I stopped hiking and just sat for a while, enjoying the solitude and quiet… and noting that it was starting to get a bit cold. Eventually I made a few photographs and started back down the way I came, pausing to photograph a small peninsula at this lake as the angle of the light lowered.
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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