Tag Archives: ridges

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

High Peaks, Evening Light

September 9, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rugged peaks tower above canyons and glaciated ridges, John Muir Wilderness

This set of peaks is bound to figure in quite a few of the photographs that I’ll be sharing from our recent extended backcountry photography trip into the John Muir Wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. Because we were located on a high, open bench directly across the canyon from them they were a constant presence, visible virtually anywhere we walked.

This photograph was made from a location a few hundred feet higher than our camp. Ascending the valley above our camp revealed more and more spectacular country — large high meadows full of wildflowers, a steam winding down the mountainside and pooling in a small tarn in the middle of a meadow, and above that access to the whole upper basin. I made this photograph late in the day after climbing up the slopes a bit to get some elevation on the glaciated moraine and forest below, opening up the views to the south into this rugged area of valleys and ridges.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Above The Meadow

August 17, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

First light comes to ridges and peaks above a subalpine meadow

Nothing was yet open along Tioga Pass Road when I visited in late July. Typically all of the campgrounds would be open by this point, but an exceptionally heavy winter snowfall had delayed the process of clearing the road and opening up the high country. There was still a lot of snow at around 10,000′ and higher, and water was running high and fast everywhere. Early in the morning I drove back into the park from my camp site just east of the crest, heading down to Tuolumne Meadows to make some early morning photographs.

I’m often a bit surprised by how few people who camp at Tuolumne manage to make it out to the meadow for first light, missing what is arguably the most beautiful time of the day. On this day, with the campground closed, there was almost no one else at the meadow — I had the place almost entirely to myself. I stopped at the lower end of the meadow and looked back to the east, across the meadow and then a series of successive ridges, including a couple of well-known domes, and finally to the summit of Mount Dana. The sun had just risen on the east side of the range, and its light was beginning to pour over the ridges of the Sierra crest.

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

West From The Panamints

April 23, 2017 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Early evening view looking west from ridge of the Panamint range, Death Valley National Park

I made this photograph on the evening of my arrival in Death Valley. The drive is always a long one, taking most of the day when I come straight from the San Francisco Bay Area. This time I had started in the Carrizo Plains National Monument, where I had stopped overnight to join friends for some photography of this year’s extraordinary wildflower bloom. That meant that even though I had a slightly shorter drive I got a later start — I wasn’t about the leave the Carrizo without making some morning photographs, and then I explored a slower route through the Temblor Range on my way out to the Great Central Valley before continuing on to Death Valley.

My Death Valley plans were not set in stone, so when I arrived in the park I wasn’t quite sure where I would go the first night. I had some thoughts of heading out to a remote canyon area to camp, but given the late arrival I started to consider simply camping at Stovepipe Wells. When I got there and it looked like the wind might kick up a dust storm I changed my mind again and headed up into the Panamint Mountains. (Anyone who has endured a Stovepipe Wells dust storm will sympathize!) In any case, I set up a camp in the mountains and then headed out to this remote ridge top location, a place from which I have often photographed in the early morning. The haze was a bit thick looking to the east, but what a view there was to the west! In that direction the same haze glowed in the backlight of the evening sun with ridges receding into the distance and culminating at the crest of the Sierra Nevada.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Foothills, Autumn Aspens

October 26, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small grove of autumn aspens is dwarfed by eastern Sierra foothill terrain

This is another Sierra Nevada autumn photograph, though the aspens take a smaller role in this one. The eastern base of the Sierra is a fascinating place. In some locations one can almost precisely locate the base of the range, where steep mountains or cliffs plunge directly into the alluvial fans at the base of the range. In several of these spots I have descended from the crest on long pack trips and walked to the “edge of the Sierra” to suddenly find myself in what feel like high desert terrain. In other locations the transition is more gradual, such as this location where the north-south highway reaches 8000′ of elevation or higher, putting this country in the same elevation range as many High Sierra meadows.

Here the junction with the range is more gradual, with high desert mountains and hills seeming to merge with the eastern extent of the Sierra and occasionally marked by huge rocky outcroppings and here and there cut by the ancient paths of glaciers. At the base of the hills in this photograph a couple of small groves of aspens manage to find a place in what is otherwise sage brush high desert, hinting at the forests to be found at higher elevations.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: ridges

High Peaks, Evening Light

Morning Above The Meadow

West From The Panamints

Eastern Sierra Foothills, Autumn Aspens

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