Dead Trees, Clearing Storm, Sunset. © Copyright 2018 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A winter storm clears to sunset light above forest of dead trees

The Sierra Nevada has been under stress for the past dozen years of so. (Technically speaking, some of these stresses have been building for longer than that, but the effects have become acute more recently.) Much of this is related to outlier weather/climate conditions and the secondary effects they have caused. The range has become much warmer. There are well-documents studies tracing the rising elevations of species of plants and animals adapting to this change. Recently the range has also experience some virtually unprecedented (at least in historical times) dry conditions, with a five-year period of tremendous drought broken by last years record precipitation, and then followed by what looks to be another very dry year this season. (We are getting some late rain, but not likely enough to make up for very dry December and February periods.) All of this affects forests it many ways, though two are obvious. The Sierra has always experienced wildfire, but recent fires have been extremely intense, going beyond the natural “pruning” effect to utterly destroy whole forests, and the areas affected by this destruction are huge. And in the wake of the drought conditions, beetle infestations have killed of tens of millions for trees.

This destruction is plain to see, and especially so to those of us who have visited the range for many decades. I sometimes imagine that new visitors driving through some denuded areas simply assume that this is “how it is” there, but others of us recall passing through deep forests in those places. As all of this has unfolded, I’ve tried to find beauty in such places — and it is there to find. These snags are on the side of a ridge, perhaps at the 5000′ level or so, on slopes facing west toward the foothills and the Central Valley beyond. It was snowing on this evening in the mountains, but I was near the western edge of the storm, and near sunset the snow diminished and the clouds thinned, and sunset light began to light the remains clouds and precipitation from behind, silhouetting these trees.

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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