Tag Archives: lake

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Alpine Lake, Morning

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Alpine Lake, Morning
“Alpine Lake, Morning” — A solitary sunrise angler stands on shoreline rocks at an alpine Sierra Nevada lake reflecting a nearby peak

During the first weekend of August I joined a group of friends for a quick backpacking trip into the eastern Sierra Nevada along the northeastern boundary of Yosemite National Park. This wasn’t primarily a photography trip so I went light, carrying a smaller system with only one lens and packing a very small tripod. The first day of the trip was, as we like to say, “interesting.” We woke up to cloudy skies that virtually guaranteed rain, and that guarantee was fulfilled in the late afternoon: I had just time to set up my tend before three hours of rain commenced! The next morning was clear, and after drying out I headed on up the trail to this beautiful lake along the crest.

After five years of historic drought and the resultant loss of permanent snow fields and damaged to vegetation, it is wonderful this year to see the changes created by last winter’s record snowfall. There are still snow banks everywhere, and even in August there were many snow crossings. On the morning after our night at this lake I got up at dawn and walked to a high place with a panoramic view of the lake and its surroundings. Just as the first sunlight began to stream across the shoulder of the peak across the lake a lone angler came to the shoreline and (thank you!) began to fish from a granite outcropping, framed against the reflection of the peak and morning sky.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.
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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: New York City

Sunday In The Park

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Sunday In The Park
Visitors to Manhattan’s Central Park on a sunny summer afternoon

Sunday In The Park. New York City. July 2, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Visitors to Manhattan’s Central Park on a sunny summer afternoon

I love the natural landscape, especially my familiar “friends” of the Sierra Nevada, the California coast, the redwoods, the western deserts, and others that are close enough to me that I regard them as part of my greater neighborhood. But I also love cities. The differences between the two worlds are obvious — loud and fast versus quiet and still, lots of crowds versus solitude, a constructed world versus a natural one. But they are not, perhaps, as entirely separate as we might think. When we visit either of these worlds we invariably bring at least some of the world we left behind. (Sometime when I feel like writing a lot more about the topic, I may share some ideas I have about the dangers of regarding the natural and human worlds as being altogether separate and distinct.)

In any case, we were again in New York earlier this summer, partly for the city itself and partly (mostly?) to visit family. We ended up in Central Park more than once, and on the last visit I think we sort of got to experience the park a bit as the “locals” do, when we put together a picnic with our “kids” and staked out a spot in Sheep Meadow to join the New Yorkers on the Fourth of July. Perhaps because that which seems natural is here so overwhelmed by that which seems constructed, it seems like at least some New Yorkers may almost feel more strongly about their local “natural spaces” than folks do in less urbanized environments. This photograph was made on an earlier walk through the park, when we traveled along paths that took us past this small but very popular lake.

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: Mono Lake Basin, Photographs: Nature

Evening Storm Clouds, Mountains

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Evening Storm Clouds, Mountains
Evening thunderstorm clouds begin to break up above high desert mountains east of the Sierra Nevada at sunset

Evening Storm Clouds, Mountains. Mono Basin, California. July 27, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening thunderstorm clouds begin to break up above high desert mountains east of the Sierra Nevada at sunset

The Sierra Nevada, being more out of the path of the seasonal monsoonal flows that beset the Southwest, often experiences clear weather — sometimes too clear! Most photographers prefer a more interesting sky, and we can actually be heard complaining about too much nice weather at times. But periodically the atmospheric flows shift northward and westward a bit, and we do see thunderstorm weather in the Sierra. Most of us love this, and we look forward to “interesting skies” when it happens. The clouds often build up over the crest and they can then spread east or sometimes west as the day wears on. Mostly the clouds will clear out late in the day, but sometimes when they drift to the east of the range the electrical show may continue into the evening.

I experienced some of this “interesting weather” on my recent visit to the Sierra around the northeastern portion of Yosemite. It actually turned out to be more interesting than expected, when a forecast of clearing on day two of my trip morphed into a forecast to daily thunderstorm chances. On one afternoon I took a hike up an east side canyon, and on my return I was surprised to find that there was rain falling near the mouth of the canyon. Before long in rained and hailed on me, and these appeared to be the kinds of clouds that might stick around into the evening. I decided to forego dinner, instead finding a high overlook and photographing the cloud show right on through sunset and into the post-sunset blue hour.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Early Season Alpine Terrain

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Early Season Alpine Terrain
A lakeside meadow is begins its short summer period of growth as snowpack melts along the Sierra Nevada crest

Early Season Alpine Terrain. July 26, 2017. Eastern Sierra Nevada, California. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A lakeside meadow begins its short summer period of growth as snowpack melts along the Sierra Nevada crest

I think I can use this photograph to tell a story or two. In late July of this much wetter than normal year, I visited the Sierra in the area roughly between Tuolumne Meadows and Lundy Canyon over a period of four days. After five years of California drought, the balance tipped the opposite direction this past winter, and did so with a vengeance. Many areas got as much a twice the normal amount of precipitation this season. Many areas opened late, lots of facilities were damaged, and a number of places (such as Tuolumne Meadows campground) were still not open when I visited. But I managed to find a high elevation campsite just outside the park, and I decided to mix a little hiking with my photography.

This lake is perhaps a couple of miles from a trailhead that offers two relatively easy ways to get there. I took a familiar one along a north-facing slope above the shoreline of a big lake, because it is shorter than the alternative and in some ways easier. Or so I thought. It turned out that the snow from this big winter is still thick in areas above 10,000′ of elevation — like this one — and more than half of my little hike turned out to be on snow. There was also water everywhere — waterfalls and cascades visible high up on mountain slopes, streams dashing madly down below, flooded meadows, and more. My second challenge turned out to be this water — and I finally came up against a creek that I wasn’t willing to try crossing while hiking solo — a bit too dangerous. The lake in this photograph lies in a subalpine basin below peaks on the Sierra crest. The snow had just (for the most part) melted out of this sodden meadow near the lake’s outlet stream, so I decided to make a few photographs that included the large blocks of granite standing in the meadow along with the very tall alpine ridge in the background.

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.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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