Tag Archives: rocky

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

Outcropping, Meadow, Evening

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Outcropping, Meadow, Evening
Evening light on rocky outcropping, meadow, forest covered mountains, Yosemite National Park

Outcropping, Meadow, Evening. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Evening light on rocky outcropping, meadow, forest covered mountains, Yosemite National Park.

I am generally intrigued by rocky outcroppings that interrupt meadows, and Tuolumne Meadows is a fine place to go looking for them. There are several there that I visit repeatedly and that I’ve been coming back to for many years. In fact, there is one that is my traditional “goodbye to summer” spot, where I typically pause and take one last look at the summer (or, by then, autumn) view of the area, consider the upcoming winter, and speculate about the coming summer.

I saw the light on this little section of rocks on a prior evening, and noted how it lined up with the more distant domes, ridges, and peaks, but I was just a bit too late to photograph it. I resolved to come back the next night and try to photograph it. I almost didn’t make it. Just before it was time to leave my campsite to go to this spot, a fellow from a nearby campsite wandered over and wanted to talk. A lot. Nice guy, but I finally had to tell him that I had an appointment with some evening light!

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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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Trees, Rocky Meadow

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Trees, Rocky Meadow
Trees march up the slopes of a rocky subalpine meadow, John Muir Wilderness

Trees, Rocky Meadow. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Trees march up the slopes of a rocky subalpine meadow, John Muir Wilderness.

Yes, I am still mining the files from this 2017 trip into the John Muir Wilderness. We were lucky to stay in an absolutely lovely area, and to find that this area was also within day-hiking distance of other wonderful locations, some of which were literally minutes away from our base camp. On top of that, we hit the weather jackpot. After a very wet and extended winter season, the lingering snows had kept the Sierra wet later than usual, and despite arriving here in the last week of August and sticking around until the very beginning of September, we had green meadows and wildflowers.

Perhaps a fifteen minute walk above our camp, beautiful subalpine meadows began. This is the land of small trees separated by expenses of seasonal green, dotted with boulders, swampy in places, and often open to expansive views of distant peaks. In short, it is pretty much my favorite place to be in the Sierra Nevada.

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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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Valley and Ridge, Evening

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Valley and Ridge, Evening
Early evening light on forest covered valley leading to rocky ridge, Yosemite National Park

Valley and Ridge, Evening. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Early evening light on forest covered valley leading to rocky ridge, Yosemite National Park.

Earlier this month I spent a few days in the Tuolumne Meadows high country of Yosemite National Park, generally along the Tioga Pass Road and with hiking excursions outwards from there. My main goal on this trip was actually the hiking, but there was time for photography, too, of course! On this evening I went up to the meadows near the pass just inside the park boundaries and took some time to wander and make photographs.

Here I was attracted by the massive peak, with its reddish rock indicative of old materials that lay above the granite foundation of the range, along with the evening light and the overlapping shapes of lower, forest covered hills and the dark row of trees just beyond the meadow. In addition, I’ve hiked out into that area many times, and this view evokes memories of many of those adventures.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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

Two Trees

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Two Trees
Two trees and their reflections along the rocky shoreline of a Sierra Nevada lake

Two Trees. © Copyright 2019 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two trees and their reflections along the rocky shoreline of a Sierra Nevada lake.

Last week I spent a few days in the Yosemite high country around Tuolumne Meadows. I had a few things in mind. Visiting one of my favorite places in the Sierra was, of course, one of them, as was making photographs in this location. I also had a more practical goal in mind — spending a bit of time adapting to elevation for an upcoming trip that has me “going high” on the first day. With that last goal in mind, each day I picked a hike that covered some miles, that climbed, and that had me over 10,000.

I had been planning to camp outside the park to the east of Tioga Pass, but much to my surprise there was still “space available” at Tuolumne Meadows when I passed through, so I changed plans and got a campsite there. This meant that when I wasn’t otherwise occupied, I could easily get to some of the well-known locations along this roadway. That’s just what I did for this photograph, getting up early and arriving here well before the day’s crowds… at an early enough hour that the place actually provided some solitude.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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