Tag Archives: massif

Ritter and Banner, Morning

Ritter and Banner, Morning
Banner Peak and Mount Ritter under a cloud shield in early morning light.

Ritter and Banner, Morning. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Banner Peak and Mount Ritter under a cloud shield in early morning light.

Mount Ritter and Banner Peak — or, as they are sometimes known, the Ritter-Banner Massif — dominate the Sierra Crest skyline in the portion of the range between Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite. They are high, dark, massive peaks. Surprisingly, they are not on the Sierra Crest, but instead on a sort of spur range that runs separates two forks of the San Joaquin River. (The actual crest is much less impressive and is located further east, where it runs north from the Mammoth Mountain ski area.)

I have been almost all around these peaks, having backpacked on both sides. On various day hikes from my backcountry camps I have explored the base of the peaks, too. But this view is from quite far away, a good distance east of the Sierra and out in the start of the basin and range country.


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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Bavarian Alps at Königssee

Bavarian Alps at Königssee
Alpine ridges and peaks above the Königssee, Bavaria.

Bavarian Alps at Königssee. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Alpine ridges and peaks above the Königssee, Bavaria.

Today’s photograph ties together several threads — mountain landscapes, travel, and my continuing pandemic survey and reevaluation of older photographic files. This photograph comes from a wonderful trip we took almost a decade ago. Among other things, we all rented a big “farm house” near this location for a week — with a backyard view of the Watzmann massif, the highest peak wholly within Germany. (If I’m correct, the face on the right in this photograph leads up toward that summit.)

We did the tourist thing on this day, taking the electric boats up the Königssee lake to St. Bartholomä, from which we did the hike to the Eiskapelle at the base of a mountain face where fallen snow and ice collects. The photograph is from the boat. Every mountain range seems to have a personality of its own, and here (at least while we were there) the very steep faces, the forest along the lower slopes, the large meadows, the soft light and haze, and the non-granitic rock (which gets the attention of this Sierra guy) seemed to define this range.


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.

Blog | About | Flickr | FacebookEmail

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

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