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First Autumn Color

First Autumn Color
Early season fall color comes to aspen-covered mountains east of the Sierra Nevada

First Autumn Color. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early season fall color comes to aspen-covered mountains east of the Sierra Nevada.

Sometimes heading away from the sure thing reveals wonderful surprises. Sometimes following up on previous explorations works, too. Occasionally the two align. A year to two earlier we had taken a long drive east of the Sierra Nevada on a fall day. We had been photographing autumn color on the east side of the range, and one morning we simply decided to try something different, so we went the opposite direction, ultimately ending up along the Nevada border. On a long, looping drive back toward the Sierra we drove down a long valley where we “discovered” a single, marvelous grove of aspens. We kept going, reaching a junction, and after exploring a bit more took a turn that headed back toward the area near Yosemite. Driving up a long, dry valley I looked west toward a range that stood between us and the Sierra and saw that there were aspens up high on its flanks.

On the trip when I made this photograph I really didn’t think I was likely to find aspens, and my plan was to head out here — again to the east of the Sierra — to do a bit of reconnaissance in preparation for returning a few weeks later during the normal peak of the fall color season. One thing led to another, and I ended up on some backroads passing through the very mountains that I had looked at on that previous visit, and much to my surprise there were already vast groves of aspens that had turned. To make this photograph I drove up to a rather high spot — 4WD was my friend on this little detour — from which I could look down at the forest and across to the highest peaks above them, past the still-green heart-shaped grove in the foreground.


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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