Tag Archives: hike

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

Whalers Knoll, Point Lobos

March 31, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

View of foggy Pacific Ocean from Whalers Knoll, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Whalers Knoll is yet another feature of Point Lobos named after “whalers” – Whalers Cove is another. Sometimes when I hike the trails along the north shore of the park I detour up a trail to the top of the knoll, from which there is a view of a larger expanse of landscape and seascape. But still, given the rough and rugged landscape of Point Lobos, there is no clear and unobstructed view – instead you can see the ocean between ridges and peaks and then only by looking for a spot where the Monterey Cypress trees are not as thick.

Although Point Lobos is a very popular park, it is usually possible to find some solitude by walking away from the most popular shoreline areas and hiking a bit. Since this trail is a bit out of the way and involves a climb, it isn’t unusual to be alone on at this lookout, especially on a foggy day when many visitors find the view from their cars to be sufficient!

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Yosemite

Meltwater, Ice, and Cloud Reflections

March 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Pools of water between sections of melting ice reflect evening clouds above Gaylor Lake, Yosemite National Park.

I continue to mine the vein of photographs from this early summer afternoon and evening visit to a lake not far from the Sierra crest at Tioga pass. In my defense I’ll point out that the conditions were variable and that I shot this subject in a number of different ways – close up views of ice and water, images that focus on the clouds, some that take in the more distant landscape of the surrounding ridges and peaks, others that focus on just the patterns of water and ice, and all shot as the light transitioned toward evening and was occasionally interrupted by clouds.

It is very unusual for me to get to visit a large lake with quite this combination of conditions. Sometimes in the early season I might encounter a lake that is still covered with ice, and later I often pass by lakes that are mostly clear but have snow banks and ice coming down to the shoreline. But in this case the lake was still covered completely in ice, but the ice was melting and creating pools of blue water on top of the remaining ice, and this water reflected the sky and passing clouds. I think the first things that might catch your attention in this photograph are the white areas of ice and the blue areas in between. But if you look a bit closer you see that the blue areas are anything but uniform. The shades of blue vary tremendously, sometimes approaching black in the shadows along the edges of the ice, spanning a range of shades in the open water, and then heading towards white in areas that reflect the clouds floating above the lake.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Melting Ice, Gaylor Lake and the Cathedral Range

March 18, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The distant Cathedral Range rises above the melting ice of Gaylor Lake, Yosemite National Park.

Near the end of June last summer I hiked up here late in the day with my friends Mike and Karl. This was a somewhat unusual season in the Yosemite Sierra, in that there had been a lot of snow during the winter season and it had continued right on into spring. Consequently, the high passes opened up later than usual, and on a very late June day when things would typically be a bit more summer-ish, it looked more like late winter up here when we arrived.

I’ve visited this place quite a few times, but had never seen quite this scene before. More typically, the snow and ice are completely gone by the time I manage to get up there, and a typical visit usually entails arriving late on a warm afternoon and then hanging out in the sun while waiting for the evening light to come on. This time we were in snow before we crossed the ridge before the lake, and we had to think a bit about just how to head down toward the lake since the usual path was covered in snow. The lake itself was (obviously, judging from the photo!) still covered in ice, though melting was underway and the surface was a jigsaw puzzle of alternating blue pools and white ice.

We found a location near clumps of trees on rocky talus slopes above the lake to do our photography. In this photograph I shot down the length of the lake to mostly fill the frame with the melting ice. Beyond a small rocky rise at the end of the lake, the terrain drops off towards the meadows of the Tuolumne region, and beyond rise the peaks of the Cathedral range in early evening light.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Forest, Upper Yosemite Valley

November 28, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees recede into the distance in a quiet forest in the upper section of Yosemite Valley.

Late in the afternoon, after the light rain had mostly ended, I stopped to try to photograph some dogwood trees that were getting their fall colors. I started by looking at some trees very close to the road, but then saw more interesting trees a bit further into the grove so I wandered a bit farther from the road. Soon I saw a couple of trails leading into more open areas near the river, so I kept walking. This led to a trail that headed up the Valley – I followed it and soon crossed the Merced River. Continuing on (and now well beyond the grove that I originally stopped to photograph!) I crossed again on a second bridge and soon noticed an interesting section of more open forest off to one side. As I wandered down into this area I saw that there were quite a few rocks along the otherwise level forest floor here, and after making a couple of initial shots I also saw that nearby the level forest floor began to give way to more hilly and rounded terrain with occasional boulders and small rocky hills. I left the trail and began to walk about slowly, just watching for interesting arrangements of trees, colorful leaves, and places where the light glowed through the forest canopy.

When I stopped to make this photograph (and several other exposures in the same spot) I was attracted by the relatively open forest through which I could see the vertical forms of the trees receding, and by the interesting arrangement of the foreground trees. The soft forest light on this cloudy afternoon also gave the leaves and needles a luminous quality.

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.

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