Tag Archives: usa

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

Spring Flooding, Tuolumne Meadows

May 12, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Tuolumne River overflows its banks on a spring evening, Tuolumne Meadows

This is another, slightly different view of a scene that I shared recently, photographed at Tuolumne Meadows on the weekend when Tioga Pass Road over the Sierra crest opened for the 2014 season. As is my habit, I broke free and made it up there to celebrate the beginning of a new high country season. It was a quick trip—a 21 hour 550 mile drive that took me across the range to the Mono Lake area and some nearby sights on the “east side.” Later in the day I reversed course and headed back up to Tioga Pass and began my homeward trip, stopping to spend a good part of the evening in Tuolumne Meadows, where strong wind blew as the golden hour light began to develop.

This scene is full of things that I know well. I have visited the general area of Tuolumne Meadows since I was a child and my father took me and one of my brothers up there on the first camping trip that I can remember. Every spring (or early summer in wet years) when I return I look for this area of the meadow where the Tuolumne River overflows its banks and produces a temporary lake, even in a very dry year like this one. On a number of occasions I have hiked on a trail that crosses from right to left just below the bright granite peak in the upper left, heading for a pass below Ragged Peak and then on to Young Lakes, which lie just beyond that highest ridge. (Just below and to the left of the granite peak lies a beautiful area of subalpine meadow with scattered rocks and extensive fields of lupine.) On this evening there were few people in the meadow, as the campground was not yet open and not many people were still up here so late in the day, so I was able to wait quietly for the clouds and the light to line up just right.

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: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Southern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Mining Relic, Death Valley

May 11, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

Between having our sunrise light interrupted by an incoming storm (though it was not a compete washout) and retreating from the road past the charcoal kilns in heavily falling snow, we stopped for a while at the old Harrisburg site, where Harris and Aguereberry ran a mine for a number of years. (They reportedly didn’t get rich, but they also avoided going bust—the story is that they extracted enough ore to make it work.)

Calling the place “Harrisburg” is over-selling it! There is a small cluster of cabins—three, to be precises—tucked up into a slight indentation at the base of a low hill in a high, broad Panamint Range valley.The mine is found at the far end of the hill and around its far side, and a variety of mining detritus litters the landscape: remnants of old rails leading into the mine, some impressive scaffolding, lots of rusted stuff, an old abandoned vehicle. As we poked around near the mine I found this old hunk of weathered sheet metal hanging from some wooden structures.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Ghost Towns, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Skidoo Mill

May 9, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The abandoned Skidoo Mill, high in the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley National Park

I have been out to the site of the old ghost town of Skidoo a few times. Oddly perhaps, snow has played a part in more than half of my visits—not what you might expect for a desert region like Death Valley. The first time I went there I really did not know much about the place at all, and I drove the nine mile gravel road more or less on a whim, arriving at the broad valley where the main town was, finding little there, poking around a bit, and leaving, a bit disappointed. (I did have a chance to investigate some other historical sites in the area on the same trip, so in the end I didn’t feel cheated.) More recently I visited last winter, during a very cold trip to the park when I encountered sub-freezing temperature down in Death Valley itself and colder temperature well down into the teens up here. Parts of the road were covered by shallow snow, and it was a quiet and lonely experience to be out there alone in the snow. This time I poked around a bit more, exploring some side trails and nearby ridges, until I decided that it was best not to push too far with the snow on the ground.

This past April we were there again, on a day full of interesting experiences and adventures. I often spend at least a day up in the Panamint Range when I visit the park, and I always find new and interesting things, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such a range of conditions and subjects in a single day before. We started before dawn and had a brief moment of sunrise light before the clouds of an incoming storm turned out the lights. Very soon we began to see snow flurries along the Panamint ridge and other summits, and soon after visiting one historic site it began to snow in earnest. We headed toward a higher location and finally had to back down as the snow continued to fall. Surprisingly, in these cold conditions and snow we found… abundant wildflowers! We stopped several times to photograph the unexpected display, and then decided to make the side trip to Skidoo as the storm passed and the sun came out. Once there we pushed out past the town site to the location of the old mill, where ore from the mines was processed. The mill, long abandoned and deteriorating now, is an astonishing thing. Its location is unexpected and stunning. It sits right below the crest of a steep ridge and the structure stretches down toward a deep valley below—and the entire site overlooks a vast and arid desert landscape, a bit of which is visible in this photograph. Even more amazing, this mill was powered by water, not at all what you would expect in such a dry and desolate place. But the miners ran a pipeline over 20 miles from a spring elsewhere in the high Panamints to get water to supply power and for the domestic use of the town’s residents.

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

Panamint Mountains, Spring

May 8, 2014 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Cloud shadows pass across valleys of spring-green high desert plants in the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley National Park

I like to think of this photograph as one that may offer a more truthful presentation of the character of Death Valley. As photographers, almost all of us to looking for the extraordinary—momentary instances of astonishing light, brilliant color towering clouds, dramatic light, and more. And, of course, there is nothing remotely wrong with that. It is these things that draw us to these places and which drive our search once we get there. We will often put up with, sometimes patiently and sometimes not, hours or days of what some call “blah” light in order to be able to photograph brief instance of something atypically powerful. But we must be aware that what we find and show in this brief slices of time is often special precisely because it is unusual.

A few years back I started thinking more about my relationship with the landscape of Death Valley and the surrounding terrain. I had been focusing on the extraordinary—and I still do—and on the way to such places I often passed through other areas, sometimes without taking the time to think about what I was seeing in those moments. I think that it was partially out of frustration that I arrived at the idea of trying to see these subjects more clearly and try to figure out how to photograph them. After all, I knew—at least once I stopped to think about it—that my love of this places was not limited to just the unusual and extraordinary moments, but that it also included midday quiet in the heat and subtle colors of sage country, a series of simple overlapping ridges, a bit of rock. And once I recognized this I started to think that these things, and not just sunrises and sunsets and impressive formations and unusual clouds, might make worthy subjects if I slowed down and tried to understand them. And this is one of those photographs. There is no single, impressive subject in this frame. Instead we have the almost uniform pale green of the arid mountain plants on an early spring day after rain, when the plants produce a subtle but surprising green coloration that varies as the land alternates between gullies and the tops of low hills and clouds from a cleaning storm move across the landscape.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: usa

Spring Flooding, Tuolumne Meadows

Mining Relic, Death Valley

Skidoo Mill

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