Tag Archives: kern

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

Timberline Lake, Rugged Ridges

December 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small timberline lake sits on a bench in front of rugged summits of the Great Western Divide

This is yet another in series of photographs from a 2010 backpack trip into the far reaches of the Kern River drainage in Sequoia National Park. For reasons that I’m not certain that I can identify, last week I decided to go back and take a look at these old photographs, few of which have not previously shared. They exemplify one of the reasons that I rarely delete old raw files, even if they don’t look all that interesting at the time — too often I return to the photographs months or even years later and find things that make me glad I kept them. Sometimes I find photographs that I simply passed over or didn’t understand at the time, and other times I simply have the joy of reliving an experience that had largely slipped from my mind.

On this trip a group of close friends with whom I have backpacked for years were on yet another summer adventure, this time into the remote backcountry of Sequoia National Park. We traveled a popular but long trail over several very high passes to get to the general area, and then we left that trail and headed west to a place that is visited much less frequently, a location tucked back up beneath the Great Western Divide. I had touched the edges of this area a few times before but never had gone straight there — and now I wish that I had visited earlier, as we found an infrequently visited region of monumental mountains and valleys and a stupendous alpine setting. This photograph overlooks a lake on a bench in an area where we camped, and the view extends westward toward the crest of the divide.

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

Three Backpackers, Alpine Terrain

December 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three backpackers hiking above timberline in the Southern Sierra Nevada wilderness, approach an alpine lake

This photograph is a bit unusual for me to share in that it isn’t particularly about the image as a photograph but more about the photograph as a record of a place and a time. It comes from a backpacking trip with friends into a remote section of my favorite part of the Sierra Nevada, the high and wild areas of the Southern Sierra within and around the Kern River’s upper drainage. This is an area that is not easily accessible — certainly not a lightweight weekend trip! — and where the terrain is unlike that elsewhere in the range. There is a huge and very high elevation plateau here, at or above timberline, with expansive views to multiple surrounding ranges, all of which feature peaks reaching to and above the 13,000′ to 14,000′ range. Any access route requires a long walk or passage over very difficult terrain, and sometimes involves both.

We entered the area by way of two high passes, one of which is over 13,000′ high, dropped onto the plateau, and walked to a favorite timberline camping location by a stream. (We would follow this stream up to the crest to exit via another high and difficult pass a few days later.) From here we left the main route and headed off into an area that none of us has visited before, an area with few trails and few visitors. This photograph evokes, for me at least, a number of sensations and recollections: what it is like to pass over difficult and nearly trail-less country with a group of like-minded friends, the sense of vast space in these open and rugged places, and the freeing feeling of passing over this country into places that I have not previously visited. Such high, open, rugged terrain is not for everyone — but I love it!

Our group has been into this area several times, and over a period of decades I had passed though many times.

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: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Great Western Divide

December 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sierra Nevada backcountry near the Great Western Divide

The back story to this photograph could end up being quite long, but I’ll try to constrain it a bit. First, credit to my friend David Hoffman, whose recent effort to share a bunch of his black and white photographs has inspired me to share a few of mine that haven’t been public before, and to go back to some older images that have languished in my raw file archives and do the work necessary to bring them to the light of day. This is one of those photograph, from a trip into a wonderful and remote section of the Southern Sierra that I undertook with group of friends over four years ago. The general area is one that I had long wanted to visit, since a strange college backpacking trip that had one of the lakes in the area as its objective, but which was derailed when my buddies and I realized that we were not up the rather intense trip we had embarked upon, and we ended up revising our trip in mid-stream — and we ended up many miles away from here. On this 2010 trip, many decades later, I finally got into this area that I had thought about during the intervening years.

The actual target destination on this 2010 trip was a particular alpine lake that I had been curious about since that original visit. We did go to that lake, a high barren lake above timberline, on this trip. Ironically, that destination from so many years ago did not particularly excite me when we got there — we stayed briefly and then moved on. But the place we ended up after that was very special. We looped into an area far up in the upper drainage of the Kern River, a location that is off the beaten track and clearly not visited that often. Our campsite near the location of this photograph showed virtually no signs of previous visits, a rare thing in the Sierra. This beautiful landscape of timberline lakes and meadows, perhaps my favorite sort of Sierra place, sits at the base of huge alpine canyons leading to massive and rugged summits. Fortunately, its remoteness and the difficulty of the approach is likely to sustain the solitude of the place.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sunset, Unnamed Lake and Great Western Divide

September 16, 2010 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A boulder sits in the still water of an unnamed sub-alpine lake in the Upper Kern River Basin as the sunset light streams over the Great Western Divide.

This photograph comes from a week-long pack trip with a group of friends into the southern Sierra Nevada, this year’s installment of our ongoing annual back-country trips. After crossing over 11,760′ Kearsarge Pass and then 13, 200′ Forester Pass we entered one of my favorite parts of the Sierra back-country, the high plateaus of the upper Kern River basin. This area is surrounded by peaks rising as high as 14,000’+ in almost all directions and the view is expansive because much of the area is a very high plateau with nearly level areas at and above 12,000′.

I have been in this general part of the Sierra many times, going all the way back to my college days when I came over Forester Pass for the first time. On this year’s trip we followed the usual John Muir Trail route down to Tyndall Creek and camped there on day 3. From here we decided to spend the next couple of days exploring a little-visited area to the west where the Kern River has its source and just below the impressive peaks of the Great Western Divide. The lake in this photograph is one of several beautiful but unnamed small lakes in the area in which we camped. Peaks of the Great Western Divide are beyond as sunset light streams between them.

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.

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Tag Archives: kern

Timberline Lake, Rugged Ridges

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Great Western Divide

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Sunset, Unnamed Lake and Great Western Divide

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

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