Tag Archives: trail

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Trail Canyon, Lower Slopes of Wildrose Peak, Death Valley

April 10, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Afternoon shadows fall across the lower slopes of Wildrose Peak above Trail Canyon and below Aguereberry Point, with Death Valley and the Black Mountains beyond.

The view from Aguereberry Point (and from this location close to the point) is spectacular and expansive, taking in everything from Death Valley itself, stretching almost 180 degrees from left to right, to the Green, Black, and other mountains beyond. To the south and north other ranges merge with the atmospheric haze. The peaks of the Panamint range lie behind, and in places where the view is clear you can look down on the rugged terrain of the east face of the Panamint Range with its rugged ridges and deep canyons dropping towards the Valley. This photograph looks roughly southeast towards the lower end of Death Valley in the area around Ashford Mill. The deep foreground canyon, the bottom of which is just visible at lower right, is Trail Canyon. I understand that a four-wheel-drive road used to come up to Aguereberry Point via that canyon, but that parts have washed out and it can no longer be driven. I think that you can hike it, but that would be one heck of a climb since the base of the canyon can’t be more than a few hundred feet above Death Valley (which is below sea level in this area) and the Point is well above 6000′. The lower slopes of Wildrose Peak rise beyond the canyon.

Surprisingly, this view presents several photographic challenges. Because of the haze that appears when such great distances are part of the scene, I chose to use a polarizing filter for this shot. Timing is important here, too. Arrive a bit too early and the light is harsh and flat. Arrive a bit too late and the foreground ridges are quickly enveloped in shadows as the sun drops behind the crest of the Panamint Range. (Yes, I have made both mistakes in the past.) Knowing this, I arrived a bit earlier than I might have usually arrive to shoot evening light and I managed to photograph the scene before that Panamint Range shadow obliterated the foreground light.

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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: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Whalers Knoll, Point Lobos

March 31, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

View of foggy Pacific Ocean from Whalers Knoll, Point Lobos State Reserve, California.

Whalers Knoll is yet another feature of Point Lobos named after “whalers” – Whalers Cove is another. Sometimes when I hike the trails along the north shore of the park I detour up a trail to the top of the knoll, from which there is a view of a larger expanse of landscape and seascape. But still, given the rough and rugged landscape of Point Lobos, there is no clear and unobstructed view – instead you can see the ocean between ridges and peaks and then only by looking for a spot where the Monterey Cypress trees are not as thick.

Although Point Lobos is a very popular park, it is usually possible to find some solitude by walking away from the most popular shoreline areas and hiking a bit. Since this trail is a bit out of the way and involves a climb, it isn’t unusual to be alone on at this lookout, especially on a foggy day when many visitors find the view from their cars to be sufficient!

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

Meltwater, Ice, and Cloud Reflections

March 22, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 5 Comments

Pools of water between sections of melting ice reflect evening clouds above Gaylor Lake, Yosemite National Park.

I continue to mine the vein of photographs from this early summer afternoon and evening visit to a lake not far from the Sierra crest at Tioga pass. In my defense I’ll point out that the conditions were variable and that I shot this subject in a number of different ways – close up views of ice and water, images that focus on the clouds, some that take in the more distant landscape of the surrounding ridges and peaks, others that focus on just the patterns of water and ice, and all shot as the light transitioned toward evening and was occasionally interrupted by clouds.

It is very unusual for me to get to visit a large lake with quite this combination of conditions. Sometimes in the early season I might encounter a lake that is still covered with ice, and later I often pass by lakes that are mostly clear but have snow banks and ice coming down to the shoreline. But in this case the lake was still covered completely in ice, but the ice was melting and creating pools of blue water on top of the remaining ice, and this water reflected the sky and passing clouds. I think the first things that might catch your attention in this photograph are the white areas of ice and the blue areas in between. But if you look a bit closer you see that the blue areas are anything but uniform. The shades of blue vary tremendously, sometimes approaching black in the shadows along the edges of the ice, spanning a range of shades in the open water, and then heading towards white in areas that reflect the clouds floating above the lake.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California

Oaks and Hills, Winter Fog

December 24, 2010 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Morning winter fog clears from the oak forest and grassland of the Calero Hills, California.

This is a sort of scene that seems to me to be a prototypical California view. Almost anywhere you go west of the Sierra and away from either the redwoods or deserts, you won’t be too far from places like this that feature grassland, oak trees, and some sort of vertical relief in the landscape. This area happens to be a short drive from where I live. It is merely a local county park and not a place that most would regard as special. However, because it is so close, I have been able to spend a great deal of time here in all seasons, at all times of the day, and in all sorts of weather conditions. Eventually I found that there is an almost unending supply of potential photographic subjects even in this spot that would certainly not impress most people as being exceptional.

I made this photograph back near the beginning of 2010, and shortly after that a posted an early version here. That version was in a slightly wider format and it was in color. As part of my year-end review of all of my raw files from 2010, I saw this image again in its original form… and this time I saw it a bit differently, in black and white and with a more “traditional” 4:5 ratio format. Contrary to what I though originally, I now think that the narrower format does a more effective job of juxtaposing the stacked angles of close, middle and far ridges, and it also let me eliminate some stuff along the margins that now seems distracting to me.

To the extent that this version of the image works, I think it illustrates something that I’ve heard others say and which resonates with my own experience, namely that it is sometimes easier to “see” what is in a photograph when you get a bit more distance from the act of “capturing” it.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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