Tag Archives: range

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

Aspens, First Autumn Snow

October 13, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 7 Comments

We made it to the eastern Sierra Nevada last week for the annual pilgrimage to photograph aspen color. We drove over on the day when the first winter-like storm of the season came to the range, and our travel plans changed accordingly. Normally we would cross the Sierra via Tioga Pass through Yosemite National Park. Although the Republican government shutdown closed the park, the trans-Sierra highway 120 remained open… until the night before our trip when it was closed in preparation for the forecast storm. When this pass closes – as it can often do in October, when early season storms drop a few inches of snow on the road – I have to consider options to the north: Sonora, Ebbetts, or Carson Passes. When we started out, Sonora was still open, but I figured that Carson was a better bet, as it is an all-season route. So we headed over Carson in the morning, encountering the first snow flurries well before the pass. From this point on, with the exception of a few lower elevation sections of our drive over Monitor Pass and then down highway 395 to Bishop, we were either in or near light snow.

This has been a slightly different year for aspens – though, to be honest, no two years evolve exactly the same way when it comes to the color transition. The highest trees had mostly lost their leaves, but we saw excellent color in many places all along the route. This color transition marks, for me, the reality that the warm season is over and California’s rainy, snowy, and colder season is coming. Being among the aspens during one of the first early season snow storms amplifies that effect, and we remarked on how sudden the transition was. Only a few days earlier it had been in the low 90 degree range in parts of Central California… and here we were in snow. I photographed the scene in this photograph as we reached the top of Conway Summit, the high point on highway 395 just north of the town of Lee Vining. Here one of the largest and most accessible aspen groves can provide an astonishing amount and variety of color for a few days each year. However, on this day the colors were distinctly muted by the falling snow.

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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. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Emerald Lake and Granite Benches

October 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A series of granite benches with back-lit trees rises above the emerald waters of a sub-alpine Sierra Nevada lake, Kings Canyon National Park

This photograph includes several features that say “Sierra Nevada high country” to me, and which immediately evoke a whole range of associations that have evolved over decades of backpacking, hiking, skiing and otherwise being in that world. The rounded granite slabs and benches rising toward more distant talus slopes are a common feature of these mountains. The small, widely spaced trees growing in the rocky terrain not far below timberline are another. The late-season brown grasses and yellow willows are a part of the annual cycle announcing that winter will soon be arriving. And everywhere, small but deep lakes scooped out by glacial action can both reveal the patterns of shoreline rocks and descend into deep emerald blue.

This is – no surprise by now, perhaps! – one more photograph from our mid-September time photographing in the back-country of Kings Canyon National Park, camped for the better part of a week in an area of many beautiful lakes near the 11,000′ level. This was an incredibly rich field for making photographs, and we were able to “work” it for the full-time and rarely walk more than perhaps 15-20 minutes from our camp. This small lake was simply one of many small lakes in this area, and I passed by it several times as I wandered up the meadows and granite of the valley above our camp.

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: Sierra Nevada

Fin Dome, Storm Clouds

October 10, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Last rays of sunset light illuminate the fractured summit of Fin Dome and the Sierra crest on a stormy late-summer evening

During a week of beautiful days in the King Canyon National Park High Sierra back-country, this may have been one of the most compelling. The day began with interesting clouds and light, eventually evolved into light showers mixed with sun shine, and as sunset approached it cleared enough to give us rainbows, dramatically dark storm clouds, and golden hour light on the surrounding upper peaks.

This dome is a familiar landmark for many who pass along a section of the John Muir Trail not far from where we photographing, though that familiar view shows the opposite side of this feature. Although I was very close to it during the many days we spent photographing here, the face of the dome was often no all that photogenic. During the day the flat light did not complement it, and it is difficult to see how to compose an effective image of the thing from very close and right below it. However, on this evening we had wandered off to another location not far away, where there were many lakes and ponds, beautiful small meadows and granite formations, and more expansive views of the surrounding landscape. Shortly after we arrived there it began to sprinkle on us and we could see heavier showers distributed around the wider terrain. As sunset approached, the clouds thinned a bit over our position and the sun began to occasionally slant in from the west below the clouds, casting light beams that traversed the landscape to our east. I missed a few moments of beautiful light on this dome before I finally realized that this was a situation likely to repeat itself – and I stopped and waited for the next illumination from the west to arrive, here contrasting the warm sunlight on the peak with the darker storm clouds further to the east.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Unnamed Lake, Early Morning

October 8, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early morning light and cloud-filled sky reflected in the surface of an unnamed sub-alpine lake in the southern Sierra Nevada range, Kings Canyon National Park

This may have been the morning with the most dramatic light during our mid-September trip to photograph in the High Sierra back-country of Kings Canyon National Park, when a group of four photographs spent 6 nights in a beautiful 11,000′ location not far to the west of the crest of the range. Our camp was on a small rise just above my camera position, and we spent out days either looking at variations on essentially this view or wandering about in the alpine “neighborhood,” exploring and making photographs.

I have some experience with Sierra weather and I can often make some decent judgments about what is going on and where things may be headed. However, during this “shoulder season” when the transition from summer to fall and towards winter is taking place, all bets are off! During the summer, when it isn’t just another blue sky day in the Sierra, a common pattern starts with fairly clear weather, introduces a few small clouds by mid or late morning, and then builds toward possible thunderstorms and afternoon/evening showers. But this morning began with overcast that was distinctly un-thunderstorm-like, the sort of thing that I find almost impossible to read. Were we seeing some evidence of a larger pattern related to the onset of winter-season Pacific fronts? Was it merely a local weather situation that would dissipate as the day wore on? In the end, we did end up with showers late in the afternoon – as we did on over half of the days on this trip – but on this morning the only thing I knew for certain was that the light on the peaks below the cloud-dotted sky was exceptionally beautiful.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: range

Aspens, First Autumn Snow

Emerald Lake and Granite Benches

Fin Dome, Storm Clouds

Unnamed Lake, Early Morning

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