Tag Archives: mountains

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

Autumn Morning, Round Valley

January 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning light on the pastureland and trees of Round Valley and the eastern Sierra Nevada

This lovely pastoral location sits at the base of the eastern Sierra, and is as much a part of the Owens Valley as it is a part of the Sierra. It is green and lush in the spring and early summer, it takes on some of the typical California golden color later on, and its brown grasses and colorful leaves produce a beautiful sight in autumn. It is not at all a “destination,” but it is a place that I always look forward to seeing when I pass up and down the east side of the range.

There are two particularly beautiful lighting conditions that occur here. One, which I’ll share in another photograph a bit later, occurs in the afternoon. The sun drops behind a tall ridge along the upper section of the valley, leaving the steep slopes of the eastern Sierra escarpment in shade while brilliantly lighting the autumn-colored cottonwood trees from behind. The other lighting, which is seen in this photograph, comes in the morning, when low angle light crosses the meadow, creating long shadows and gradually lighting up the backdrop of the Sierra.

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: Sierra Nevada

Autumn Leaves, Tahoe Shoreline

January 10, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Colorful autumn leaves along the northern shore of Lake Tahoe, California

As part of a project that I’m working on I spent a few days photographing and exploring in the greater Lake Tahoe area in early October. I’ve gone to Tahoe for years, but mostly in the winter for cross-country or Telemark skiing or in the summer for family trips, back when we would occasionally get a cabin up there. Oddly, my experience with the lake in the fall was almost nonexistent.

So this trip was part of a process to fix that omission. I spent time in some of the surrounding areas where there can be some spectacular autumn color and I spent one full day circumnavigating the lake. It was on that day that I paused at the north end of the lake, just inside the California border, to photograph these colorful trees against the deep blues of the sky, mountains, and lake.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Owens Valley

Ranch, Fence, Morning Mist

January 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning mist rises above Long Valley ranch land

This is a favorite photography area for me. It isn’t far from the crowded eastern Sierra ski and resort town of Mammoth Lakes by the map, but it every other way it is pretty much a completely different world. In the fall, when conditions are right and mists rise out in these flatlands, I like to leave the Sierra behind and drive out here and explore.

The Long Valley area is the caldera of an ancient volcano, which erupted quite violently many hundreds of thousands of years ago, and which has been active at times since then. Today the visual evidence remains in the form of the large caldera itself (which becomes quite obvious after you look for it) and the many hot springs and even a hot creek out in the valley. On cold mornings fogs form out here, and mist and steam rise from the many sources of hot water. This was one of those foggy mornings, and looking over this ranch and directly into the sun, I saw a beautiful series of receding layers: foreground pasture and several steaming waterways, a fence, more fog beyond, more mist, and then a series of higher and higher hills and mountains.

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

Spillway Lake

January 4, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Afternoon light on Spillway Lake in the Yosemite backcountry

Although it was a bit more than nine years ago, I remember this hike very well. I had a free afternoon, so I decided to hike out to a familiar Sierra Crest pass that I had visited before, but along the way I chose to take a detour up past the lake see in the photograph. This route followed a trail along a small, singing creek that topped out in a fairly level subalpine meadow that surrounded the lake, and the last bit of the hike was on open, smooth ground. I paused at the lake, stopping at some rocks on near the small peninsula visible near the lower part of the image to eat a snack, drink some water, and quietly take in the scene.

The trail to the lake ends here, but the route up across open terrain to a nearby pass was fairly obvious in this country, so I simply passed along the edge of the lake and then headed up toward the wide saddle. It wasn’t long before I arrived there, and after my visit to the pass I started back down along the trial that came to the pass from another nearby drainage. I traversed a high ridge and had a good clear view back down to “my” lake, now far below and luminous in the afternoon light and backed by the tall dark hill with talus slope above leading to a higher ridge.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mountains

Autumn Morning, Round Valley

Autumn Leaves, Tahoe Shoreline

Ranch, Fence, Morning Mist

Spillway Lake

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