Tag Archives: lake

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Lake, Trees, Storm

October 26, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening at a subalpine lake on a day of late-season storms

This weeklong photography trip into the Yosemite backcountry this September brought some very strange atmospheric conditions. To begin with, the four-year California drought has deeply affected the Sierra, and by the time we got into the mountains there were wildfires up and down the range. One significant fire was burning no far away inside the park, another large fire burned just outside the park to the north, and a small lightning-caused “management fire” was burning very close to our camp. At least once per day we were inundated with thick wildfire smoke, morning or evening. (We counted ourselves lucky to get a good half day of photography conditions each day.)

Closer to the end of the trip we encountered another weather anomaly. Thunderstorms are not unusual this time of year, and it is even possible to get an early Gulf of Alaska Pacific storm. But instead we got the remnants of the hurricane off of Mexico. When all was said and done we had virtually two days of rain — not the terrible rain that keeps you in at the tent, but the general light rain that eventually gets everything wet, but which also produces some very wonderful effects of atmosphere and light. This evening exemplified such conditions. Beyond the forest ringing out lake the sky included dark clouds and lighter areas where a bit more light made it through, and all of this was mirrored in the calm surface of the lake.

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

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: People, Photographs: Photographers

Photographer, Long Valley, Dawn

October 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Photographer Patricia Emerson Mitchell working the dawn light near a small lake in Long Valley

On about my third week of aspen photography this fall I was accompanied back to the Sierra by my wife and fellow photographer, Patricia Emerson Mitchell. There are all sorts of advantages for me when she comes along — motel (instead of tent or back of car), real food (instead of things heated over a camp stove), and more… ;-) By this point in the aspen season I was ready for something that wasn’t aspen, so on this morning we headed east rather than west into the Sierra, traveling out across Long Valley with a plan of going even further east toward the White Mountains near the town of Benton.

We started in near darkness and arrived at a familiar spot out in the Valley before the sun rose. We parked and headed out to our destination, arriving a few minutes before the light, at which point we went to work rapidly — the photographic opportunities evolve rapidly as the first light arrives. Here she sets up close to the shoreline of the lack, photographing across the water toward mountains to our north as the first light rakes across sagebrush and the nearby hills.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Escarpment

October 19, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada rises from desert hills to rugged aretes lit by dawn sun

Depending on how you approach the range, the Sierra Nevada presents two quite different aspects to the visitor. For many decades, as a long time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I was only familiar with one of them. I always came to the range from the west, on long drives over coastal mountains and then across the Great Central Valley. As I approached the east side of the Valley I would encounter the low hills, at first almost imperceptible, that humbly mark the beginning of this might range. Because it tilts upward from the west, the western slopes are overall very gradual. Rising through these first low hills, the grass and oak covered landscape raises over a distance of many miles, and it is quite a while before the range starts to feel like “the mountains,” and many hours before the visitor arrives in the high alpine zone of rugged granite peaks. Even here, to the west of the crest there are plenty of gentle valleys and meadows.

The east side is a radically different world, as I finally began to understand two or three decades ago. The eastern base of the range is an arid near-desert place, made more so by Los Angeles’ historic draining of east side waters that once irrigated now-dry places and once filled today’s dusty playas with shallow lakes. The Sierra rises abruptly from this lower landscape, and in places you can look up nearly 10,000′ to the highest summits — you stand in desert and look at alpine peaks, and you see every zone in between. I made this photograph at dawn from one such valley location where the landscape that of sagebrush and playa and alkali lakes. From this spot I looked across low hills with the first coniferous trees toward the abrupt rise of the eastern foothills, backed by jagged and rugged slopes leading upward to high peaks.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Young Lake, Mount Conness

October 10, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Cloud shadows race across the landscape on a summer day near the Sierra crest below Mount Conness

This is an older photograph, made eight years ago back in 2007 on a late-season solo backpack trip into the Yosemite back-country. A week or so after the Labor Day holiday, the crowds almost disappear from the park’s high country, and everything seems to sort of slow down as the summer comes to and end and the inevitable signs of impending autumn remind us that summer is over and winter is not that far away. I think that this can be the most beautiful time of year in the Sierra, especially on a day with beautiful, warm autumn-like light, golden brown meadows, blue sky, comfortable temperatures, solitude, and perhaps a few passing clouds.

There is a story about how I found myself in this high spot overlooking this lake and the mountains beyond. That morning I had been poking around near by bivy sack camp when I saw someone napping in the lakeside meadow. It turned out to be a backcountry ranger. I made some wise-guy remark (intended entirely in jest, and he took it that way) about the challenges of the ranger’s life, and we got to talking. For him, this late season period was a time to slow down a bit and enjoy his own solitude. As we talked he pointed up towards a rocky saddle above the lake and pointed out what, in retrospect, should have been obvious to me — there was a well-used cross-country route through the saddle. So I decide to depart the lake via this alternative route, and when I reached the top of the climb and looked back I saw this spectacular Sierra panorama.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: lake

Lake, Trees, Storm

Photographer, Long Valley, Dawn

Eastern Escarpment

Young Lake, Mount Conness

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