Tag Archives: peak

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

First Light, Base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range

February 25, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First morning light on the rugged landscape of the base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park, California

This photograph was made from a location a ways up from the bottom of Death Valley, from which I could look directly across at the lower slopes of gigantic Tucki Mountain as the first morning light worked its way down toward the lower ridges and the huge alluvial fan at the base of the mountain. At the moment I made the exposure the light was just beginning to fill this slanting area below the rugged mountains, and the light was softened by morning haze.

Tucki Mountain is a huge peak that almost seems to me to be large enough to count as its own minor mountain range. It rises above Stovepipe Wells, and extends a great distance east, south, and west of there. It is laced with deep canyons and its lower slopes are heavily eroded to reveal tilting and twisting strata. Another large valley lies on beyond the foreground spur ridge in this photograph, and beyond that the Panamint Range rises to its crest at 11,000+’ Telescope Peak.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Rhyolite Ghost Town, Amargosa Valley and Mountains

February 9, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

While there can be some moments of beautiful and colorful sunrise light at the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada – and I was there for it – this early morning light from a short time later probably gives a more true sense of what the place tends to look like during the winter months. (Even here, the high, thin clouds soften the scene a bit – it is often quite cloudless.)

From what I understand, Rhyolite sprang up in the very early 1900s after gold was discovered nearby. During the short life of the town, measured in no more than decades, it was reportedly the second largest city in southern Nevada. It featured banks (two of which are seen in this photograph), a railroad station (abandoned but still present and located behind my camera position), newspapers, an impressive school house, and thousands of residents. It was all largely abandoned in the first half of the 1900s and most of the buildings are gone, though traces of them and the old roads they lined can still be found here and there. A few large buildings in the center of the town still more or less stand, in varying states of decay. The building on the right was the Cook Bank. Another bank was located where the white walls are a bit further in the distance. The town school house is the furthest building. The whole town overlooked the Amargosa Valley, where the current boundary of Death Valley National Park lies. Beyond that, an inside the park, are the Amargosa Range and in the far distance the ridge of the Panamint Range and the summit of 11,000+’ Telescope Peak.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Eureka Dunes and Last Chance Range, Morning

February 7, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light on the Eureka Dunes and the hills of the Last Chance Range, Death Valley National Park.

While I love – who doesn’t? – the golden hour light on the desert dunes and hills and valleys, I also like to seek out the subtler and more “atmospheric” effects that are often frequently seen in this terrain. I had spent the (very cold!) night alone out here in Eureka Valley. I woke up fairly early, though with the sun having to rise past the ridge of the Last Chance Range, the light did not come early. I soon packed up my camp – which largely meant rearranging stuff in my vehicle – and before long started the drive out toward Lone Pine and my trip back home over Tioga Pass.

But first I planned to stop just a ways away from the camping area so that I could use a long lens to photograph the dunes against the background of the higher surrounding peaks. By the time I did this it was after 9:00 a.m. and the early morning golden hour light was long gone, replaced by the soft and hazy bluish light that is more typical during daylight hours. However, the sun was still low enough to glance across the dunes at a fairly low angle and to backlight the dunes and the mountains behind them. The idea here was to juxtapose some of the different textures, lines, curves, and angles of this landscape – the curving forms of the dunes near the bottom of the frame, the sharply delineated sunlit ridges of the upper dunes, the faint view of jagged and stratified rocks in the low peaks beyond them, the further ridge inclining the opposite direction from the dunes, and the much fainter texture of the huge valley in the distance.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Eureka Valley Dunes, Dusk

January 22, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pink dusk light on the Eureka Valley Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park.

On the second-to-last day of my January visit to Death Valley, I decided that it would make sense to exit the park to the north by way of miles of gravel roads heading into the northern portion of the park then out via more gravel and then some paved roads to Big Pine the next day, setting me up to return home over snow-free (in January!) Tioga Pass. After shooting early in the morning I headed back to my camp – at Stovepipe Wells at that time – had some breakfast, took down my camp, and packed. By the time I fueled up my car and headed north, I was a bit behind my planned schedule, but I figured that I might still make it to Eureka Valley in time to shoot in some late afternoon light.

A few hours later, after a drive including over 40 miles of gravel, I finally arrived at the site of these monumental dunes. At nearly 700 feet tall, they are supposedly the tallest dunes in the United States – or is it in North America? Eureka Vally is a lonely place, being a long drive on rough roads from any direction and almost completely without the civilized services found in some other areas of the park. When I got there, a family that had visited was just leaving, and there was one other photographer shooting high up on the dunes. I knew that I didn’t have enough time to try that, so I grabbed my gear and hiked over to one side of the dunes where their lower slopes begin to merge with the flat surface of the valley and where the last sun would hit the dunes. I shot there for a while and after the sun dropped below the ridges to the west I went looking for subjects that might benefit from the post-sunset soft and pink light. Very close to my “campsite” (which was in the back of my vehicle that night!) I saw these plants leading up toward the summit of the dunes and the higher stratified peaks beyond, and I made a few photographs in the rose-colored late light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: peak

First Light, Base of Tucki Mountain and the Panamint Range

Rhyolite Ghost Town, Amargosa Valley and Mountains

Eureka Dunes and Last Chance Range, Morning

Eureka Valley Dunes, Dusk

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