Tag Archives: mountains

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Autumn Color, Granite Cliff

November 10, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Transient autumn big leaf maple color in front of the granite face of El Capitan

Many of the beautiful Yosemite Valley big leaf maple trees, with their striking fall foliage, tend to be tucked away in somewhat protected areas, often in dense forest or alongside the river. Here I found one, and a rather large specimen, that stood enough apart from other trees that I was able to isolate it from the rest of the forest.

I had stopped here to photograph a different set of trees, a group that was more typically set against the dark backdrop of tall forest trees and in the shadow of the southern wall of the Valley. As I worked I looked around and happened to glance up at the face of El Capitan and notice that its usually intensely bright face was muted a bit by some high clouds, revealing details that are otherwise hard to see in the middle of the day. In fact, there was a slight blue cast to shadows and some of the dark stains on the rock, a coloration that seemed to contrast nicely with the intense yellow of the fall foliage of the maples.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Aspens, Green and Yellow

October 27, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Transitional early autumn aspen color in the Eastern Sierra Nevada

These tall aspen trees with their straight trunks are not the most common sight in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where smaller and more twisted trees are more the rule. But in protected and well-watered locations the trees can grow straight and tall. I photographed these at the beginning of what most would consider the prime aspen color season in this region, the first two or three weeks of October. The color starts up high (often even earlier than this) among small, high elevation trees and then works its way down into the canyons and out into the drier lands east of the Sierra. At this spot, though not within the view of the camera, there was an entire hillside covered in bright yellow small trees, but among these larger trees the show was just beginning.

This demonstrates something that Sierra aspen-chasers eventually learn, namely that if the trees in one spot are not ideal we can simply look higher or lower, north or south, and we’ll probably find trees in good condition. Although I did not make it back after this visit during the 2016 aspen color season, I’m quite sure that those who came to this spot a week or two after I was there found that some of the yellow trees had lost their leaves and that the trees that are green in this photograph were brightly colored.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Foothills, Autumn Aspens

October 26, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small grove of autumn aspens is dwarfed by eastern Sierra foothill terrain

This is another Sierra Nevada autumn photograph, though the aspens take a smaller role in this one. The eastern base of the Sierra is a fascinating place. In some locations one can almost precisely locate the base of the range, where steep mountains or cliffs plunge directly into the alluvial fans at the base of the range. In several of these spots I have descended from the crest on long pack trips and walked to the “edge of the Sierra” to suddenly find myself in what feel like high desert terrain. In other locations the transition is more gradual, such as this location where the north-south highway reaches 8000′ of elevation or higher, putting this country in the same elevation range as many High Sierra meadows.

Here the junction with the range is more gradual, with high desert mountains and hills seeming to merge with the eastern extent of the Sierra and occasionally marked by huge rocky outcroppings and here and there cut by the ancient paths of glaciers. At the base of the hills in this photograph a couple of small groves of aspens manage to find a place in what is otherwise sage brush high desert, hinting at the forests to be found at higher elevations.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Ridges

October 24, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A seemingly endless series of ridges rises toward the crest of the Sierra Nevada in early evening light

The east side of the Sierra Nevada — the “eastern escarpment” — provides an often impressive and quite varied landscape. In places the terrain at the base of the mountains may be in the 4000′ elevation range, which in others the “lowlands” to the east may lie at 8000′ or higher. The mountains may erupt from this lower landscape in a sudden upward burst of granite and cliffs, or they may rise more gradually along mountain valleys that extend well into the range. In places the summit peaks are visible, while in some areas they are hidden behind lower peaks east of the crest. In one spot in the middle of the range the crest is actually lower than peaks to the west.

In this area along the western boundary of Yosemite the Sierra rises somewhat gradually from the high desert sagebrush country. The emptiness of this high desert gives way to a band of coniferous forest and is then replaced by the rugged granite high country. Here the sagebrush highlands rise, ridge upon ridge, toward the peaks of the crest, with the golden colors of early fall becoming muted by atmospheric haze in the distance.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mountains

Autumn Color, Granite Cliff

Aspens, Green and Yellow

Eastern Sierra Foothills, Autumn Aspens

Eastern Sierra Ridges

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