Tag Archives: range

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

Deer Graze Below Lembert Dome and Mount Dana, Tuolumne Meadows

August 2, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Deer graze in the early evening in Tuolumne Meadows below Lembert Dome and Mount Dana, Yosemite National Park.

Although compressed here by the use of the telephoto lens, this view of Tuolumne Meadows, Lembert Dome, and Mount Dana is one of the first that you might see when arriving at the Meadows from the west – at least if you happen to look towards Dana after dropping to the meadow and rounding the first gentle curve to the left past a group of trees that grows along the roadside and at the edge of the meadow. This alignment of Lembert and Dana is one that I always look for when I arrive.

Perhaps because I often see it when I arrived at Tuolumne, and because I most often arrive in the morning, my mental image of this view usually includes haze that makes the view of Dana opaque, especially in when the haze is back-lit by this morning light. Oddly, I don’t often look across the meadows from this point of view during the evening, when I suppose I’m more likely to be further up the meadow and closer to the Tuolumne River itself. On this July evening, however, I did happen to be here just before sunset. (I don’t recall for sure, but I’ll bet that I was returning from photographing somewhere to the west.) When I saw that familiar alignment of Lembert and Dana in the evening light, I stopped. I don’t think that I noticed the herd of deer along the meadow at the bottom of the frame until I was set up.

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, Photographs: Yosemite

Mount Conness and Ragged Peak, Forest

July 31, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Evening light slants across forest below Ragged Peak and Mount Conness, Yosemite National Park, California.

This photograph was made from the Tuolumne Meadows area with a long lens, and it includes the heights of Mt. Conness at the far right, the lesser prominence of Ragged Peak at the left, a shaded ridge running above the Young Lakes basin, and a closer bit of typical Yosemite forest mixed with a bit of dome-like granite, with sunset light slanting across from the left. By the way, I wondered for some time where the name “Mt. Conness” came from. I finally looked it up during the past year, and I found out that the namesake was Senator Conness, one of the two California senators during roughly the Civil War period – Conness was responsible for the legislation that initially set parts of the current Yosemite National Park aside for protection and preservation. All in all, a person deserving of a peak with his name.

Although photographed here from some distance, I know parts of the landscape encompassed by this photograph quite well, including the visible portions and some that are hidden from sight in this photo. For a number of years I have made a habit of visiting the Young Lakes area at least once each season, often late in the season when the summer crowds have dissipated – though I have also visited very early in the season, and I have the mosquito stories to prove it! Young Lakes lie on the other side of the shaded ridge traversing the center of the photograph, and I’ve often looked up at that ridge from the lakes. I have also hiked up into the valley on this side of the ridge. The trail to Young Lakes crosses the wooded area beyond the sunlit trees and passes through a beautiful semi-meadow area below Ragged Peak, a place where beautiful lupine flowers may be found at the right time of the year and from where one can obtain some panoramic views of a lot of high Yosemite Peaks. On one of my first visits to Young Lakes, it was so late in the season that the backcountry ranger who was patrolling the area apparently had little to do, and one morning we ended up having a very long conversation along the shore of one of the lakes. I remarked that a particular little gully in roughly the area of Ragged Peak looked like it might be interesting, and he shared enough information about the route that I chose to use it rather than the regular trail on my return to the trailhead. Mt. Conness, here the only peak or ridge still fully in sunlight, towers above everything else in this area. I have not climbed it, though I have investigated some trail less areas around its base and I’ve looked at it from almost every side.

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

Morning, Tuolumne Meadows

July 22, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees of Tuolumne Meadows in morning light, with forest ascending background slopes, Yosemite Naitonal Park.

As a photographer, I am often up and off to shoot some interesting subject well before dawn. When I am car-camping, as I was during my mid-July visit to Tuolumne Meadows this year, I have a loose ritual that I usually follow. The night before I come up with one or more subjects that I would like to photograph in morning light. Based on where those are – driving or walking distance, and closer or further away – I set an alarm for a much earlier time than I want to. Then I have everything ready for a quick and fairly brainless early start – anything I’ll need to take from the tent sits by the end of the zipper I’ll grab to open the tent, and other things are already in the car. The alarm goes off – way too early for my brain, of course! – and I try to sit up so that I won’t go back to sleep and then put on whatever clothes I need for the morning weather. On a good day, I’m out of the tent and in the car in 5 minutes. On a bad day it might take 15. (On a really bad day, I have been known to just go back to sleep! Hey, it happens… but not very often.) I get in the car and try to drive out of the campground as quickly and quietly as possible.

You may have noticed that something was missing from that routine – breakfast! Indeed, I usually don’t bother with breakfast before shooting, preferring instead to get to work while the light is good. As hard as it can be to get started, it usually doesn’t take too long to find some site so special and compelling that I forget how hard it was to get up so early. In fact, once I get going I am often surprised to find so few others out and about at this time of the most beautiful light. Frequently I may see only a few hikers and perhaps another photographer or two, and even a couple of hours later, as the best light begins to transition into the “blah” daytime light, many people are apparently still in their sleeping bags.

I didn’t have far to go on this morning. Tuolumne Meadows is just across Tioga Pass Road from the main campground. The early light was a bit hazy, and as the backlight lit up the meadow and fringed the many trees, this haze enhanced the sense of distance between the closer trees and the forest leading up the more distant hillside.

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

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

July 17, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning light, shining over the shoulder of Mount Dana, strikes a shoreline meadow along one of the Tioga tarns, Yosemite National Park.

I’m pretty much completely unable to resist making photographs of trees back-lit by morning light, especially when they are in meadowy areas along the shorelines of sub-alpine or alpine lakes. The condition is even worse when the water reflects the backlit trees, and almost unbearable when the light also illuminates some of the shapes below the water’s surface. It is a personal weakness. I freely admit it! ;-)

I made this photograph early one morning, but not too early, in the general area of Tioga Pass. The high country on both sides of the pass contains quite a few small seasonal ponds filled by snow-melt water. Many are shallow and many, but not all, are partially to completely surrounded by meadow. Often small trees may grow in the meadow areas along the banks of the tarns, with the old explanation being that they are “gradually filling in the meadows,” though I’ve also heard that they find it harder to grow in these areas because of the higher water table. I made this photograph with a rather long lens. In some ways it might have been better to work closer to the trees and use a shorter lens, but here it was also a better idea to use the long lens to protect the area surrounding the tarn, an area that is perhaps just a bit too accessible to visitors and which needs a bit of additional care and protection. By the way, if you want to see green high country scenes like this one, you’ll have to go very soon this year! After a very dry winter, much of the water is already drying up in the high country and the meadows that would typically be at their height of green right about now are already turning brown quickly.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: range

Deer Graze Below Lembert Dome and Mount Dana, Tuolumne Meadows

Like this:

Mount Conness and Ragged Peak, Forest

Like this:

Morning, Tuolumne Meadows

Like this:

Morning Light, Tioga Tarn

Like this:

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

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

Share this page:

Like this:

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