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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Early Fall Color, McGee Canyon

September 17, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Early fall color comes to McGee Canyon in the eastern Sierra Nevada, California.

I’m going to use today’s post not only as the opportunity to share another daily photograph, but also to share some observations about the arrival of the fall aspen color season in the eastern Sierra Nevada range, where I spent a good part of the past week.

I made the photograph at the very end of a three-day backpack trip up into the McGee Creek drainage, where we settled in at a 10,000+” lake for a couple of nights to enjoy the late-season solitude. (Before starting the pack trip I had spent a couple of days in Tuolumne Meadows, and upcoming posts will concern that part of the trip.) McGee Canyon is an eastern Sierra “type” – a typical trailhead canyon that rises from the high desert, into forests, through increasing rugged and rocky country, and finally reaches the crest of the range at a pass. On this early afternoon we were fortunate to get a few clouds, moderating the intense sun and adding a bit of texture to the landscape. The photo was somewhat casual – still wearing my full pack, I shot hand-held.

About the onset of fall color… I have watched this transition carefully for a number of years. While I have learned a lot about how the process unfolds, I have also learned that many aspects of it defy precise prediction. Every September, those of us who chase eastern Sierra aspen color start to watch for signs that might provide clues about the nature of this season – the amount of snow during the previous winter, how late it remained before melting out, long-range weather forecasts, early color changes in many other plants that can show up even in late August, and more. But, truth be told, in the end every aspen season seems to hold surprises and defy out attempts to know in advance how it will play out. A season may start with early color up high, only to be interrupted by early storms. Or a season may start late and then move very quickly. Or poor early color in one part of the range may lower expectations… only to be followed by great low-elevation later on. Or there may be any number of other possible variations, too numerous to list.

All of this is my way of saying to take my observations with a suitable dose of salt. :-)

Several weeks ago I began to read the typical early September notes about “early color” here and there, especially in portions of the Rockies and some areas of the Southwest. I was intrigued, but not ready to believe it. I read and hear these reports of early color every season – and generally the correlation between what is written and what occurs in the actual event is weak.

This has been an odd summer season for me, for reasons I won’t go into here. As a result, I had not been to the Sierra since early July or so – a very large gap of time for me, since I rarely allow more that a couple of Sierra-free weeks to occur in the summer. I was not there at all during August – which is almost unheard of. I usually catch my first hint of oncoming autumn on one of those late-August visits. It is hard to put my finger on precisely what it is, but invariably (well, almost invariably, since it didn’t happen this year…) there will be a day when I sense “something” in the air that reminds me that summer will end very soon – whether it is a breeze, a quality of light, a change in the plants, I can never tell for sure. But I am sure when I experience it.

Soon there are more concrete signs. The golden-brown dried meadow areas start to expand, the wildflowers are harder to find, corn lily plants begin to turn golden-yellow, bilberry leaves turn dark red (and brilliant red when back-lit) and the leaves of willows near streams and lakes turn yellow. By mid-September all of this is typically underway, and at this point I start thinking about aspen color in earnest. Whether it is because we tend to go to different places to find our aspens or because we have experienced different seasonal variations, individuals will tell you to look for the aspen show to begin at somewhat varying times. I tend to look for real aspen color around the very beginning of October, and to expect a peak roughly a week into the month in the higher country. Except for watching for the odd tree with a branch full of yellow leaves, I don’t expect to seem much real color in September.

But… I just returned from a pack trip that was right in the middle of September… and I saw a significant amount of aspen color. As I drove over the Sierra crest on my way to the east side I was not expecting to see aspen color, and I did not see much. Despite the other sources of fall color, the aspens just east of Tioga Pass and down in Lee Vining Canyon were almost uniformly as green as I expected. When we arrived at our eastern Sierra trailhead, there were a few yellow leaves here and there, but nothing too out of the ordinary. However, a mile or two up the trail I was quite surprised to find large stands of aspens in which many trees were showing color – just a few leaves on some, but perhaps a quarter or a third of the tree in the most extreme cases. In my experience, this is unusually early – but at least a week and arguably perhaps a bit more. (Not all of the color in the photograph comes from aspens, by the way.)

What does this mean? I’m not sure. If I had a bit more time I would have investigated one or two other east-slope canyons to see what is going on elsewhere – it could be that this canyon is somehow out of sync with others. But I doubt it. All I’ll say is the following: Some aspen color is already beginning to appear in some areas of the eastern Sierra. While no one knows when the main show will arrive (or what it will look like), if I were making plans for a visit to the eastern Sierra to photograph aspen color, at this point I would lean toward going a little bit early rather than a little bit late. However, as always, realize that you cannot count on the timing or the quality of the display, and flexibility increases your odds of being there at a good moment.

More articles on Eastern Sierra aspen photography:

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Desert Pond and Sierra Nevada Dawn

October 15, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Morning mist rises above a high desert pond reflecting the lower slopes of the eastern Sierra Nevada near McGee Creek.

On the second morning of my first fall color to the eastern Sierra this autumn, having been less than astonished by this year’s color so far, I decided to head instead out into Owens Valley to shoot back toward the mountains and to shoot some subject in Owens Valley itself. I started at this little lake a few miles east of highway 395, where great reflections of the range lit by morning sun area often seen. This photograph looks across the small lake towards McGee Creek Canyon. (McGee Creek isn’t a bad place to look for aspen color…)

I arrived here before sunrise and was set up and ready to go before the first light hit the peaks in the area of Mt. McGee and Mt. Morgan. As I stood (freezing!) by the shore of this small lake, waiting for the light that I knew was coming, a truck came up the lonely road to this place, passed the pond, made a u-turn, and slowed down by my vehicle, which was parked along the main road. My first thoughts were “this is either another photographer or someone who is checking out my car… for purposes I don’t want to think about.” However the vehicle kept going. A few moments later I discovered that this was a photographer, and he and his dog took up a position along the far shoreline. A few days later I was looking through an online landscape photography forum and I came across a photograph that looked like it had been shot from about that photographer’s position, and in which the conditions looked darn near identical to what I saw that morning. I contacted the photographer and found out that, indeed, he was the person I had seen that morning. (If you wonder why we didn’t touch base on the scene… a) we were both busy shooting the entire time, b) we were on opposites sides of the lake, and c) even though I yelled a greeting he didn’t hear.)

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: Northern California, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

McGee Canyon and Mount Morgan

December 10, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Snow crested Mount Morgan rises above McGee Canyon and the sagebrush-covered hills of Owens Valley in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

I’ve been traveling to the Sierra for many years. My first recollection of the range is a faint mental image of a shoreline park at Lake Tahoe when my family moved to California – I was four years old. My next memory is of staying at a small motel in El Portal next to the high water of the Merced River back in the days before the current mega-hotels were erected. One thing that all of my early Sierra experiences had in common is that I always approached the range from the west since I lived (and still live) in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the person whose orientation to the range is from the west, the Sierras are a range that begins almost imperceptibly in the Central Valley. Although you can see distant peaks from the Valley on clear days, it is hard to say where the range begins. As you head east you encounter some very small and rounded hills which gradually get larger. Eventually you are going up more than up and down as you travel through oak and grass lands. At some point the road rises into forest, but the mountain tops are mostly rounded and forest covered. Keep going and a few rocky prominences begin to appear along the ridges and some distant granite peaks become visible. Only after a lot of driving do you find yourself in the higher reaches of the range, and this only in the few areas where roads cross from west to east. In most places you cannot even see the summit of the range close up from the west without walking a long ways.

It was only many years later that I first went over the summit of the range and saw it from the east side. The Sierra is (are?) completely different when approached this way. Instead of a long, gradual, and relatively gentle rise to high valleys and forests and meadows, the eastern escarpment of the Sierra rises abruptly – one might say violently – and directly, in most places, from the high desert sagebrush country of Owens Valley and similar places. This wall of peaks seems almost inaccessible, and I imagine that many people who only drive past on highway 395 must regard it that way.

This photograph was made from a spot just a mile or two east of highway 395, out an a gravel road that I know. I have photographed this shadowed foreground ridge and the peaks beyond in the past, so I had a fairly good idea of what I would find at this location before I made the photograph on an early October morning when fall storms had dusted the highest peaks with snow. I used a somewhat long lens and tight framing to emphasize the rise from the foreground desert to the very high peaks beyond.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Dawn, Alkali Lake, Eastern Sierra

December 7, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Dawn light on Alkali Lake and the peaks of the eastern Sierra Nevada near Convict Lake.

I posted a photograph very much like this one a month or so ago, but I like this place and the morning light so much that I’m posting this similar photograph. The location is on the shore of a small alkali lake out in Owens Valley/Long Valley, in an area that is full of hot springs. On this very cold early October morning, steam was rising from the many hot springs in the area as the sun rose, lighting the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada near Convict Lake, the sagebrush-covered hills below the Sierra, and finally the surface of the small lake.

For many years after I started visiting the east side of the Sierra Nevada I mostly ignored the high desert terrain such as the area around this lake. As time went on and I looked further east I began to venture out here, and I discovered a beautiful landscape that is affected by proximity to the Sierra but which is not really “Sierra Nevada” itself. The bulk of the eastern escarpment is a constant presence here, but the character of this place is more that of the basin and range country — dry, full of sagebrush, with playas and rocky outcroppings.

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Tag Archives: mcgee

Early Fall Color, McGee Canyon

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

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