Tag Archives: usa

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

High Sierra Trail

March 24, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

High Sierra Trail to Hamilton Lakes

Sometimes I backpack alone and sometimes I travel with friends — and both are great. While I treasure the freedom and solitude of solo backcountry travel, I have been fortunate enough to find friends who share my interest, some of whom have backpacked with me for decades. This trip marked the third time I had been across this section of trail. The first time was quite a few years ago, when Patty and I went on our first long backpack trip, spending two weeks along the High Sierra trail as we traversed it from west to east. The second time I was traveling solo. In fact, it was my first solo pack trip, a two-week journey that took me a ways out on this trail, after which I turned north, wandered up Bubbs Creek, over Glen Pass, and around the Rae Lakes before emerging at Kings Canyon.

This third visit was on another trip across the High Sierra trail. Although I had done it years earlier, it was a completely new trip to the rest of my group, a band of backpackers who have traveled the trails together for a long time, plus a couple of new additions. The first few days of the trip traveled up the Kaweah River drainage towards a ridge crossing at Kaweah Gap. The trail mostly stays high on the north side of the canyon, and here above Bearpaw Meadow the trail occasionally travels along granite domes an ledges, always with the spectacular high ridge of the Kaweahs looming ahead.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Moraine Lake

March 22, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Moraine Lake shoreline in evening, Sequoia National Park

I have only been to this remote lake twice, but as I think back on it now it seems a special place. My two visits were separated by decades. The first was when I was in my twenties and one half of a young couple on our first very long Sierra pack trip, a trip that had us taking two weeks to cross the Sierra from west to east. When I think back to pack trips from so far back, I realize that I have forgotten many details but this lake remains. On the second visit I came here on a trip retracing that earlier trip, though this time with a larger group of friends who had not been here before. It takes me a solid four days of walking to get this place, and the route covers some spectacular country and takes me into and across some very high places.

That route, and the contrast between it and what I found at this lake may account for the special feelings I have for this place. Both times on this route, the first day was a hard one under a heavy, long distance backpack load. The second day is about the same length, but it ends with a moderate climb to a lake. Day three starts right out with a brutal climb up the walls of the cirque above the lake, then crosses a high pass, drops into timberline country, and descends mostly open terrain to a camp where the trees grow thicker. Then on the fourth day things ease up. Much of the trail is though Sierra high country forest, mixed with open views, and then it leaves the main trail and takes a lateral out through more forest to this lake. I recall an expansive area of open forest along the shoreline, a shallow and pretty lake with forest on the other size, and a few peaks in the distance to catch the morning and evening light. From the right spots I could catch my first views of the summit of Mount Whitney, where I would stand a week or more later. And from this second trip I recall a slow and quiet evening with my hiking partners, hanging out in camp and sitting lazily on shoreline logs.

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

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese Above, Cranes Below

March 17, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Late winter flocks of Ross’ and other geese and lesser sandhill cranes in the San Joaquin Valley

Although it isn’t quite over yet, as the first day of spring approaches I have been thinking back over this winter season and especially the experiences of again photographing Central Valley migratory birds. There is far too much write about all of it in a single post, so I’ll just share a bit about the transitions and process of the season, at least as I observed it.

In the early fall I begin to look forward to this season of birds and fog and winter light, though the anticipation is tempered a bit by early season opportunities to photograph other subjects, especially the fall colors of the Sierra and elsewhere. But sometime in late October I start to think a lot about the great annual migration, and I start to watch for signs that it is beginning. This past year I think it was probably late November or early December when I made my first trip, and I recall enjoying the landscape once again but being disappointed that the birds hadn’t really shown up yet. After four years of drought I wondered if the bird population had been damaged. Then a bit later in September I began to see a few more geese, but they were not very plentiful and they were not always where I hoped to find them. It wasn’t until January that they began to be a bit more common, but soon the numbers increased and by February I was seeing absolutely huge numbers. By the time I made this photograph in late February I was frequently seeing tens of thousands of geese, along with many hundreds of perhaps thousands of cranes — which is exactly what we see in this photograph.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Lesser Sandhill Crane

March 15, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lesser sandhill crane in flight above California’s San Joaquin Valley

These beautiful birds have a big place among the Central Valley migratory birds. Although they appear in smaller numbers than the geese, at times you may see hundreds or thousands of them in one place at various locations up and down the valley. They have a striking cry that is instantly recognizable and very different from that of other Central Valley birds. With their size, their slower wing flapping, frequent coasting, and level flight from place to place they are also easy to recognize when they are airborne.

Tracking individual birds with a camera and long lens is a challenge, especially when the bird gets close enough to become large in the frame. (It takes practice to track them. The ideal is to eventually become quick and smooth, and to remain aware enough to think about the bird’s wing and head position and even about what it in the background.) On the day when I made this photograph there were many, many cranes about. I managed to position myself between two groups, and I waited there quietly for cranes to fly across my position.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: usa

High Sierra Trail

Moraine Lake

Geese Above, Cranes Below

Lesser Sandhill Crane

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