Tag Archives: lake

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.

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

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.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Aspens, Eastern Sierra Gully

October 8, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A “river” of aspen trees in autumn colors snakes its way up an eastern Sierra Nevada gully

I believe that I shared this photograph earlier in a different context — rather than a photo-of-the-day post, it was used to illustrate one of my reports on my Sierra Nevada Fall Color page. I made this photograph at an iconic eastern Sierra location in late September, which is a week or so earlier than I would typically expect to see such color in this place. This has been a strange year, the fourth in a series of drought years, and possibly the worst. The effect of Sierra Nevada vegetation is more apparent as we go into the fall, and there have been apparent effects on aspens. First, some of them changed color noticeably early this year, as much as a week or two earlier than what has been typical. Second, some trees seem to have been stressed to the point that they are almost foregoing the brilliant color stage and instead going almost directly from green to losing their leaves — and some groves were already completed bare before September ended. On the other hand, where the trees were perhaps a bit less stressed the color change seems to have come on a more typical schedule, with quite a few low elevation trees still green as of a few days ago. You can see almost all of this conditions in this photograph — trees changing colors early, trees that lost their leaves completely, and some that are still green.

This particular spot is intriguing, and quite a few people show up to photograph here — not just for the “river of aspens” in the photograph but also for some of the surrounding alpine scenery and for other accessible examples of aspen color. I’ve photographed here for quite a few years, so I often forego the chance to re-photograph some of the familiar subjects, but this time I found a slightly different location from which to make this photograph and I wanted to capture the unusual conditions. There were several things that appealed to me about this scene on this day. Obviously, the colorful trees are an attraction at any time, but the bare trees in the middle, between the upper orange trees and the lower yellow/green trees, were an unusual sight. The curve of the grove, as it passes around the hill on the right with its coniferous trees, seemed to enhance the character of the aspen’s s-curve as it descends the gully and transitions from orange to white to yellow and green.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspen Tree Trunks

October 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Aspen tree trunks in the first morning light

Frankly, aspen trees are fascinating in a huge range of ways, in all seasons, and in many kinds of light. At the current time of year most of us focus, with good reason, on the annual spectacle of their fall colors — blankets of yellow, gold, orange, and red. But aspens are beautiful when they are bare and they are beautiful when new leaves appear in the spring, and they are beautiful in the middle of summer when their leaves shimmer in the breeze.

The trunks in this photograph are those of “fall color” aspens, and you can see a bit of that color in the background. However, there is another aspect of color in this photograph that I like to consider, namely the range of colors and textures in the bark of these trees. Ideally, we often think of aspen bark as being white. With the right trees and the right light it can, in fact, seem quite white. However, in most cases the bark colors are much more varied, ranging from gray to green to brown. The textures are also quite something — the trees can be almost perfectly smooth or they can be very rough and rugged. The pair of foreground trees in this photograph are an interesting case, especially if you think of aspen trunks as being white. A closer look reveals that the tree on the right has strong yellow-brown-golden tones while the one right next to it is covered with interesting red patterns!

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: lake

Eastern Escarpment

Young Lake, Mount Conness

Autumn Aspens, Eastern Sierra Gully

Aspen Tree Trunks

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