Trees and Granite Bowl. Yosemite National Park, California. September 15, 20110. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A variety of trees grow on a shallow layer of sandy soil in the middle of a large granite bowl, Yosemite National Park.

While the small, stunted and contorted trees that grow in impossibly small and barren cracks in the granite are amazing examples of how life can thrive with minimal support and against all odds, in some ways these groves of larger trees are at least as surprising. This group includes some very large and old specimens, yet they are growing in what cannot be much more than a foot or so of sandy soil washed down the surface of this glaciated granite slab – which elsewhere within its area supports nothing this extensive. In what must be the lowest part of the descending surface of the bowl, where perhaps more moisture is found and more sand and gravel transported, this “soil” – largely sand mixed with rocks and boulders – has collected and somehow these trees have managed to put down roots that allow them to grow and fill out a small grove.

I made the photograph in the very late afternoon as the sun was heading toward real evening light. The light is coming in at a low angle from the left and is just beginning to take on the warm coloration of evening. Because it was partly cloudy, I waited until the shadow from a thin cloud muted the light on the granite surface of the bowl in the background.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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