Tag Archives: lake

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Photographers, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Keith Walklet, Yosemite Backcountry

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Keith Walklet, Yosemite Backcountry
Photographer Keith Walklet hikes past subalpine lakes in the Yosemite National Park backcountry.

Keith Walklet, Yosemite Backcountry. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Photographer Keith Walklet hikes past subalpine lakes in the Yosemite National Park backcountry.

This is an extra fun post for me to share because it ties a whole bunch of strings together — and it somehow manages to memorialize literally the first instant of my friendship with Keith Walklet. Back n 2008 I had heard from Charles Cramer that he and a group of fellow photographers would be spending a week or so in a Yosemite backcountry location that was very familiar to me, as part of a long term project that took them into the backcountry to make photographs every year. I mentioned that I might just backpack in on my own and look them up. I arrived in the neighborhood, but couldn’t find them, so I went ahead and set up my own solo camp and got to work exploring and photographing. A day or two later I was descending cross-country from a high, rocky lake when I spotted a heavily-laden figure coming up the valley, skirting a lake and heading my direction. Judging from the absurdly large load he was carrying I knew it was either an overburdened backpacker… or a photographer. I suspected the latter.

I quickly made a couple of exposures as he approached — mostly thinking that the figure in this landscape might be interesting. I made this photograph less than a minute before our first meeting. I had never met him, but I guessed he might be part of Charlie’s group and he confirmed. We spoke a bit — I don’t recall many details of the conversation aside from finding out where they were camped and that he was probably heading to the lake I had just left — and then I continued down canyon as he continued up. A day later I caught up with the group at their camp as I began my walk back out to the trailhead. This was the end of my trip, but it was the beginning of a longer, fulfilling journey with this band of friends: Keith, Scot, Mike, Karl, Charlie, and occasionally others. The next summer I hiked in to meet them for a couple days at their next location. The summer after that I still went in on my own, but walked with them and camped with the group for several days. And the next summer I began to participate in these wonderful expeditions every summer, spending a week or more in the glorious Sierra backcountry with a wonderful group of photographers and friends. (And, yes, we’ll be doing it again later this summer. I’ll perhaps have more to say about that later this season.)

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Panamint Lake

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Panamint Lake
Panamint Lake spreads across Panamint Valley following heavy winter rains

Panamint Lake. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Panamint Lake spreads across Panamint Valley following heavy winter rains.

Death Valley National Park visitors who arrive from the west or southwest almost certainly drive through Panamint Valley — whether traversing a good part of its length when driving north from Ridgecrest and Trona arriving after driving across from Owens Valley and US 395. The area was not originally part of the park but was added more recently. Despite being framed by big, rugged mountain ranges on either side, it is more typically a place people drive “through” rather than “to.”

It is also generally a very dry place. But near its upper end there is a typical desert playa… which necessarily implies that the area is periodically flooded during wet periods. This spring I passed through twice on visits that were about a month apart. The first time followed a very wet period and the usually dry playa was covered by a very large, shallow lake… of which there were virtually no traces one month later.

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

Lakeshore, Evening

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Lakeshore, Evening
A few sunset clouds reflected in the quiet surface of a backcountry Sierra Nevada lake.

Lakeshore, Evening. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A few sunset clouds reflected in the quiet surface of a backcountry Sierra Nevada lake.

Periodically I find myself going back to my archives and looking through older photographs, typically images that I made years ago and sort of left behind as I went on to work on newer things. These reviews often have a couple of wonderful consequences. Often I rediscover a photograph that I had originally neglected, perhaps because it worked in a different way than what I originally imagined or possibly because I wasn’t patient enough at the time. The distance provided by a few years of time often allows me to see the image in ways I missed at first. In addition, these older photograph bring back wonderful memories — of the subjects, for sure, but also of the trips themselves and the people I traveled with.

I made this photograph on a long southern Sierra backcountry trip with a group of long-time backcountry buddies — folks I have backpacked with many times over the years. On this trip we were down to our core group of four, and we traveled into one of the highest, alpine regions of the range, into the upper Kern River drainage of Sequoia National Park. Those who know this region won’t be surprised to hear that we had to cross several very high passes, that we were out for over a week, and that we got into places where we saw very few other visitors. I made the photograph on a lovely, lazy evening, near a lake we ended up at almost by accident — a place that turned out to be utterly scenic, extremely quiet, and almost devoid of visible signs of humans.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Heart Of The Desert

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Heart shaped formation on a desert playa
“Heart Of The Desert” — Dried mud patterns on the Panamint Lake Playa, Death Valley National Park.

This is not typically the direction I point the camera… but sometimes there are interesting things to see right at your feet! I had stopped at a playa whose edge is right next to the main highway into Death Valley. I got out and wandered on to the playa with my camera. (This might be the world’s easiest walking.)

This playa is typically dry, and after the rare storms that bring enough rain to create mud, the playa surface dries out and cracks into interesting patterns. As I wandered around this visual playground I spied this rather unusual patten in the surface of teh playa.

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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Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.

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