Tag Archives: nevada

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

Tree, Reflecting Puddles After Rain

December 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small pine grows from a crack at the end of a small rainwater pool reflecting golden morning light from overhead mountains

Among those who have visited this place, the small tree in this photo has perhaps become almost iconic — though, in truth, if you look you can find such trees all over the high Sierra. Each seems to me, upon reflection, to be a bit of a small miracle. Like this one, they often manage to grow in incredibly challenging circumstances. In addition to the usual stresses of the high country, these trees found themselves sprouting in a world of almost unbroken granite, perhaps finding barely enough water and soil in small cracks or shallow rainwater pools to get get started, but then constrained by these conditions to lives of very slow growth and a marginal existence. I missed it, but a friend who was there with me pointed out that this is actually a mature tree, producing seed-bearing cones and likely quite old.

The location is such that the tree is in shadow for a long time in the morning. I have photographed it at other times of day when the light is “better,” but I also like soft shade light and thought I’d give it a shot. Above and beyond this slab and the tree there are higher granite walls, and they catch the morning sun — and from just the right angles that golden glow is reflected in the pools around the tree, here filled by rain from the previous day.

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

High Desert Aspens, Autumn

December 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Yellow and orange autumn aspen trees in the high desert terrain of the eastern Sierra Nevada

My “discovery” of Sierra Nevada aspen trees has gone through a number of phases. I was first aware of these trees many years ago, early in my backpacking career, when I frequently encountered the trees and their fluttering leaves along backcountry trails. (To this day, when I think of the green trees, one of the first places that comes to mind is a humble little thicket along the trail to Cathedral Lakes.) It was not until much later, believe it or not, that I made the connection between these trees and the color show that they put on for us in the fall. Perhaps this was because my orientation to the Sierra was from the west side (rather than the east, where the most spectacular aspen displays are arguably located) and because I rarely visited the range during aspen color season, instead going almost exclusively in summer (for camping, hiking, backpacking, and occasional climbing) or winter (for cross-country skiing.)

Perhaps fifteen or twenty years ago I had my first introduction to the “east side.” I know that sounds crazy, especially for someone who has loved the Sierra for a lot longer than that, but somehow it worked out that way. On the bright side, I had the opportunity to discover a whole new aspect of the Sierra at a relatively later point in my life. After “discovering” the precipitous east side of the range, it wasn’t a big step to expand my season a bit to include late September and October, which eventually became my favorite times to be in the range — for aspens of course, but also for beautiful fall weather and the occasional early season storm. More recently, after perhaps a decade of heavy focus on the eastern Sierra aspens each fall, I have begun to turn my eyes further east, to the color along the base of the range and in the mountains to the east of the Sierra, where the trees often grow in spare, dry surroundings.

Equipment, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Lake and Shoreline, Evening

December 11, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening light comes to a remote alpine lake in the Sierra Nevada backcountry.

I made this photograph from more or less our campsite on a backpacking trip to this remote area of the upper Kern River drainage in the southern Sierra Nevada back in 2010. It was a trip that combined the familiar and the new, that took me to a spot that I had first thought of visiting decades before, and which provided some surprises. The first few days of the trip covered familiar ground over a couple of high passes and dropped us into the upper Kern on the John Muir Trail. At this point we left the JMT and followed less traveled routes for the remainder of our visit.

Our first departure from the JMT was to head south of northwest into the upper Kern’s more remote areas. We were not so far out on the fringe that there were no trails, but the trails were clearly not well used and we saw very few people. The area is not easy to get to nor is it really on the route between other major points, so those that go there pretty much just go there. Eventually we worked our way over towards the foot of the Great Western Divide, to an area full of intimate meadow/rock landscapes and small lakes. Here we found a beautiful campsite that gave no hints that it had been occupied before. I’m sure it had been, but it is unusual to find such a place in the Sierra that is visited so infrequently that there are not obvious signs of the previous visitors. We set up camp, engaged in warfare with marauding mosquitos, wandered about a bit, and settled in to watch the day come to an end.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Sunset Light and Talus Slope

December 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Sunset light on a tree-covered peninsula as a steep talus slope falls into evening shadows

This photograph from the first evening of a week-long 2010 southern Sierra backpacking trip reminds me of many things, but at the moment I’m recalling a particular feeling that often comes on the first night on the trail, and which is one of these moments that marks the transition away from the other world to the magical world of the backcountry. Arriving at the start of a long backcountry trip requires a fair amount of planning that begins well before the trip. Often months before (those sometimes on the previous weekend!) a plan is hatched and a group of people assembled. Soon dates are set and an itinerary comes together. As the date approaches, we collect gear together and begin to pack and make the plans for our absence. The process accelerates as the day approaches and soon we are on our way to the mountains, often arriving at a trailhead came the night before, where the familiar sensations and rhythms begin to return.

The next morning we are up early, packing away the things we brought for that first campground night and paring down our possessions to only those things we’ll carry on the trail. We tear down camp, check and double-check gear, fill up water bottles, lock cars, head to the trailhead for the inevitable photo by the sign… and we are off. The first point of breaking away (once again!) is at this moment when we start up the trail, but in some ways this is often the beginning of a mental transition that will last all day as we again become accustomed to life on the trail. We climb, we stop to filter water, we eat our first of many trail lunches, the climb becomes harder as we watch for the pass up above. Eventually we reach that pass, where we stop and sit for a while, looking into the world where we’ll spend the next few days or week(s), then we head down the other side of the pass, an act that always seals the feeling of commitment to the trip. We arrive and set up our first trail camp, once again putting specialized equipment to use, remembering just how we set up that tent and operate that stove. Then, once all these tasks are complete, we find what we came for — there is nothing left to do. So we do nothing. We walk slowly around the lake, make some photographs, sit on a rock, and quietly watch the last light on a tree-filled peninsula beneath shadowed talus slopes.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: nevada

Tree, Reflecting Puddles After Rain

High Desert Aspens, Autumn

Lake and Shoreline, Evening

Sunset Light and Talus Slope

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