Tag Archives: meadow

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Sheep Peak, McCabe Lakes Basin, Sunset

October 1, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The last light of the day touches the top of Sheep Peak in the McCabe Lakes Basin, Yosemite National Park.

This was a beautiful and fun evening! We were camped at the lower lake in this basin for a few days. The routine, roughly speaking goes something like this: Up before dawn and off to photograph some morning subject until the light goes or the energy wears down; back to camp for breakfast; do camp chores and generally hang out and shoot the breeze into the afternoon; dinner sometime around 3:00 or 4:00; then off to whatever locations is on the agenda for the evening shoot; back to camp after dark. On this evening we all were on the same page and we all headed up to this lake, a few hundred feet higher and no more than a mile from our camp.

The walk was steep but mostly pleasant, at least as long as one went relatively slowly and stayed out of the creek with its willow thickets and instead found a route through the forest nearby. Eventually the route – there is no trail – began to level out at a meadowy area below the lake. This was gave a false sense that the climb was over, but at least the walk up the meadow was very enjoyable, as the small outlet stream twisted through grassy meadow and past the occasional boulder and some trees, with the higher peaks visible above. At the upper end of this meadow was the lake’s basin, with a tall peak on top of the headwall at the upper end, forest beyond the shoreline meadows to the left, and rugged talus slopes and rocky peaks along the right shoreline.

Here we split up and looked for our own shots. As I sometimes do, I found “the spot” and more or less worked it until the light went away. I walked along the thin shoreline meadow, resisting the temptation to just set up and start shooting, and eventually came to this little group of shoreline rocks and trees that I could use as the close element of photographs of the lake and the peaks beyond as the day came to an end.

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.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Building Clouds, Upper Young Lake

September 23, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Black and white photograph of clouds building in the sky above Upper Young Lake and Ragged Peak, Yosemite National Park.

Young Lakes in general, and the upper lake specifically are among my favorite places in the Yosemite back-country. This little Basin has a lot to offer, especially to photographers. For one thing, it is almost completely open to the west and late day light, and the upper lake is one of my favorite places to be as a summer evening comes to an end. (There is, of course, then the matter of the typical walk back to my campsite at the lower lake in the near darkness, but that just adds a bit of adventure.)

If I recall correctly, this was one of those days when I did not quite predict the weather accurately. I saw these beautiful clouds beginning to build fairly early in the day, but figured that I’d have plenty of time to get to the upper lake and perhaps even investigate some areas beyond before the weather got “interesting,” so I headed off without any real rain gear. (You know where this is leading…) Here at the upper lake, the clouds don’t look bad at all – definitely in the “interesting” category, but not all that threatening. With that in mind, after shooting here a bit I headed on up above the lake to check out some higher ridges and so forth that I’d been thinking about visiting.

Much to my surprise, within a few the wind picked up and giant raindrops began to fall. I heard a few claps of thunder. And there I was at timberline without any rain protection at all. Needless to say, I high-tailed it back down, stopping briefly to get a bit of shelter under a tree near the middle lake. Arriving back at my camp, I had the ever-so-fun opportunity to practice the skills of a somewhat wet me into my bivy sack without totally soaking my sleeping bag…

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Autumn Color, Yosemite Valley

September 19, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Autumn colors on trees and meadows, Yosemite Valley.

These colors are a feature of late October and perhaps the very beginning of November in Yosemite Valley. In the right conditions, the browns and golds and oranges of these drying meadows and the leaves of these trees can be almost as spectacular as any other fall foliage.

A few years ago I discovered that here in California I can sustain the fall color season for months if I just look in the right places. What it might lack compared to the intensity of east coast hardwood forests, it makes up for in variety and length. I can often find early signs of the approaching fall by the beginning of September or even the end of August in the higher portions of the Sierra, as certain plants complete their growth cycle and start to die back. (Even in the coast ranges, there are a few trees that can get “fall” color during the heat of August.) By late September the pattern is clear at all high elevation locations in the Sierra, and then the tremendous aspen color show begins close to the start of October, extending a good way through the month. After that the lower elevations hills and mountains start to change – and that is what we see in this photograph from Yosemite Valley at 4000′ of elevation. But closer to sea level in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere the show is still to come, and colors can continue all the way through November if you know where to look.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts when this page is viewed on the web. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

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

Ediza Lake, Morning

September 6, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 3 Comments

Broken clouds cover the sky as morning light comes to Ediza Lake and surrounding peaks, Sierra Nevada.

This is a photograph from about four years ago, when I made a several-day trip into the area around the Minarets and travelled slowly between Ediza Lake and Thousand Island Lake. I was on the trail with my brother’s family, so we took it fairly easy and stayed at Ediza and then Thousand Island for several days. This provide plenty of time for photography, unlike some of my “traditional” trips on which I tended to move every day.

We had “interesting” weather on this trip, in all senses of the word “interesting.” In fact, the conditions really were quite good for photography, ranging from perfectly clear dawns to afternoon thunder showers and everything in between. On one memorable late morning I had hiked up from Ediza to the some higher lakes closer to the Minarets. When I left it was perfectly clear, but by the time I arrived at my destination (or perhaps my new, closer destination once I saw the weather) it became clear that it wasn’t going to remain clear for long. Being a bit too trusting of the earlier clear weather, I had gone out with no rain gear, and by the time I got close to camp very large rain drops were starting to fall.

This photograph was made in the morning from the shoreline of Ediza Lake. It looks back over the lake toward Mount Ritter and Banner Peak, whose two large summits dominate this whole area.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

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