Tag Archives: mono

Photographs: Mono Lake, Photographs: Nature

Burned Pines, Morning Sky

Image Leave a comment
Burned Pines, Morning Sky
The skeletal remains of a stand of ponderosa pine trees under blue high desert sky, Mono Basin.

Burned Pines, Morning Sky. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

The skeletal remains of a stand of ponderosa pine trees under blue high desert sky, Mono Basin.

This photograph comes from my short trip to the area near Tioga Pass in Yosemite during the final days of summer — a trip to reacquaint myself with the Sierra after missing the entire summer up there. I camped near the crest where I could easily enter the park or head east and visit the eastern escarpment of the range and some of the nearby high desert terrain.

I made this photograph on a morning when I headed east, passing Mono Lake and continuing a bit further, then turning off the main road to drive along the edge of a huge ponderosa pine forest. At some point in the past a wildfire burned though here, and the skeletal burned trees have long fascinated me. These trees are right at the (former) edge of the grove, and Mono Lake and desert mountains are barely visible in the distance.

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 | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Nature

Desert Lake, Island and Mountains

Image Leave a comment
Desert Lake, Island and Montains
Distant desert mountains stand in morning light beyond Mono Lake and Paoha Island.

Desert Lake, Island and Mountains. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Distant desert mountains stand in morning light beyond Mono Lake and Paoha Island.

Mono Lake is known for a few particular things: the picturesque tufa towers along its shoreline and its extremely salty water. (It is landlocked, so all water — except that stolen by LA — leaves the lake by means of evaporation.) But other things that characterize the Mono Basin for me, too. One is the surprising juxtaposition of essentially high desert and the vast surface of this lake. Another is the huge expanse of sky. And at times, the area can be as still and silent as almost any place I’ve been.

This time I went in the morning, primarily to visit two places. One, seen in some other photographs that I’ll share from this visit, is an old ponderosa pine forest that was consumed by wildfire. The other is the spot in this photograph, on a ridge along a roadway, where I can look across hills and the periphery of a volcanic crater toward the lake, its own volcanic islands, and desert mountains in the far distance.

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 | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Mono Lake, Photographs: Nature

Clearing Sunset Storm, Mono Basin

Image Leave a comment
Clearning Sunset Storm, Mono Basin
A late-summer storm above the Mono Basin breaks up at sunset.

Clearing Sunset Storm, Mono Basin. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A late-summer storm above the Mono Basin breaks up at sunset.

Sometimes when conditions don’t look promising where I am I make some guesses, rely on hunches, consider past experience, and head off in a different direction at the last minute. On this evening I was up near the crest of the Eastern Sierra, hoping for a break in the clouds and some interesting light. But it did not look like that was going to happen, so I jumped in my vehicle and headed down to the East Side and looked for long views that might include the landscape and what I hoped would be interesting end-of-day light.

Arriving there, not a lot was happening. The crest was socked in by clouds that obscured the peaks and blocked the light from the west. Where I was it was fairly gray. But I know that it isn’t unusual for some clearing to occur near sunset — and if it happens colorful light can suffuse the landscape. I had to wait until nearly the last minute, but the light finally arrived. Gaps appeared in the clouds and beams of colorful light began to stretch across the scene. In this photograph the clouds are above desert mountains and the Mono Lake Basin.

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 | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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

Photographs: Mono Lake, Photographs: Nature

Where Once a Forest Stood

Image 2 Comments
Where Once a Forest Stood
The skeletons of ponderosa pines at the edge of high desert.

Where Once a Forest Stood. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

The skeletons of ponderosa pines at the edge of high desert.

Today I interrupt the stream of photos from our European travels (“Finally!,” a few of you say…) to share something from my first return to the Sierra and points east since we got home. The European trip was great — and I look forward to more like it — but I missed my mountains! There’s a lot more to write about that and about getting back “out there,” but I will save most of it for later posts.

On this morning I was camped above 9000′ in the Eastern Sierra, but I decided (for reasons including deteriorating weather) to head out along the eastern slopes of the range to photograph in the early light. After some less-than-satisfying photography of the eastern escarpment (wildfire smoke was an issue) I headed out into the high desert near Mono Lake and then into a remarkable grove of ponderosa pines, one of the largest (perhaps the largest) in existence. I was aware of the results of a wildfire here years ago, and I wanted to photograph the remains of burned forest, so I turned off on an unmarked route and ended up here, where dead trees still stand starkly against the desert landscape.

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 | Twitter | Flickr | Facebook | Email

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

Scroll down to leave a comment or question. (Click this post’s title first if you are viewing on the home page.)

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