Triteleia. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Triteleia flowers in bloom, Pinnacles National Park.
Recently I made a trip to Pinnacles National Park, located just east of California’s Salinas Valley. I have a very long history with this place, going back decades to my childhood visits when it was still a national monument. Back then the biggest attraction was “the caves…” which now don’t really interest me at all. In middle school I once rode a bicycle all the way down there in a small group, and we stayed in a campground on the east side of the park that is no longer a campground. (When it became a national park the camping was moved to another area that used to be outside the park boundaries.) In college I occasionally rock climbed there — an experience that included a bit of carelessness on my part that could have ended my life forty years ago.
This visit was a brief day trip, with some combination of hiking and photography as my goals. I arrived in the early morning, but not at the usual photographer’s pre-dawn hour, loaded up my pack with camera gear, and headed up the trail. My initial goal was some shaded canyons on the way to the small reservoir not far from the end of the road coming in from the east side, and my longer goal was to get up to the summit ridge of the “high peaks.” Along the way I hoped to be able to view and photograph the spring wildflower bloom that the park is known for, and I wasn’t disappointed. Although this season is heading toward its conclusion, and the green is rapidly heading toward brown, there were tons of flowers including these sprays of triteleia, or “pretty face,” flowers.
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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