Tag Archives: valley

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Escarpment, Clearing Autumn Storm

October 31, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An early season autumn leaves a dusting of snow atop Wheeler Ridge, Eastern Sierra Nevada

This long ridge in the Eastern Sierra just north of the town of Bishop has long fascinated me, though for the most part I’ve only looked at it from a distance. (Or from the other side, as there is access via along valley to the west, but that’s a story for another post.) At first I was mostly aware of this steep section of the eastern escarpment of the range when it served as a spectacular backdrop for views of the pastureland and cottonwood trees of Round Valley. But with increased familiarity with the area and opportunities to view if from many directions and distances, I began to note what a tremendously rugged and daunting bit of terrain it is. In many ways, if you ignore the scant vegetation on its slopes, it looks more like the mountains of the desert, even reminding me a bit of places in Death Valley, though with more granite-like rock. Unlike many other Eastern Sierra locations, there is little (no?) evidence of glaciation, but plentiful evidence of erosion from water, including the classic alluvial fan spreading from the steep valley between the low hills in the foreground.

Despite the lack of glacial evidence, the scene presents many other classic components of the eastern face of the range in Autumn. Although it is small against the tremendous landscape, there is an aspen grove and a bit of summer-brown grass near the lower left. The main rocks seem to be the granite that we expect to see in the Sierra. The rocks are lit by filtered sunlight from the southeast. And the cloud drifting in front of the rugged face is the remnant of a passing storm that has dusted the highest peaks with a bit of early season snow, promising that winter cannot be far off.

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

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: People, Photographs: Photographers

Photographer, Long Valley, Dawn

October 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Photographer Patricia Emerson Mitchell working the dawn light near a small lake in Long Valley

On about my third week of aspen photography this fall I was accompanied back to the Sierra by my wife and fellow photographer, Patricia Emerson Mitchell. There are all sorts of advantages for me when she comes along — motel (instead of tent or back of car), real food (instead of things heated over a camp stove), and more… ;-) By this point in the aspen season I was ready for something that wasn’t aspen, so on this morning we headed east rather than west into the Sierra, traveling out across Long Valley with a plan of going even further east toward the White Mountains near the town of Benton.

We started in near darkness and arrived at a familiar spot out in the Valley before the sun rose. We parked and headed out to our destination, arriving a few minutes before the light, at which point we went to work rapidly — the photographic opportunities evolve rapidly as the first light arrives. Here she sets up close to the shoreline of the lack, photographing across the water toward mountains to our north as the first light rakes across sagebrush and the nearby hills.

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

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Eastern Sierra Pack Station, Fall Colors

October 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Autumn cottonwood and willow color at the McGee Creek pack station at the base of McGee Canyon

These eastern Sierra Nevada canyons have long fascinated me. My initial orientation to the range came from decades of approaching the mountains from the west, where they rise gradually, beginning almost imperceptibly with small irregularities and hills far out in the eastern portions of the Great Central Valley and then build slowly over many miles to eventually reach the Sierra crest. I “discovered” the east side of the range decades later, and was amazed by the contrast. Rather than beginning in the gentle west side grassland and agricultural areas, the base of the east side is frequently high desert, a spare and dry land of sage and open vistas. The Sierra begins abruptly, and in some cases you can stand at the actual base of the escarpment and look almost straight up to peaks that are many thousands of feet above you. The east side is cut by many short but deep canyons, where steep creeks drain a terrain originally cut by glaciers. In a very short distance — often traversed in a single day — one can move from high desert to the alpine zone.

In addition to focusing on that landscape, this photograph includes an element representing another component of life on the east side, a trailhead pack station. Here, too, my experience was such that I only recognized the role of these outfits more recently. For decades I was primarily oriented to the range as a backpacker and, to be honest, I regarded those using pack animals as representing an intrusion in the wilderness experience that I sought. (On the other hand, I recall many years ago seeing the occasional individual backpacker leading a single donkey along the trail, something you almost never see any more.) A few years ago I began to work with photographic colleagues who use pack trains once each year to get into the back country to photograph in ways that are more or less impossible when traveling on foot, and before long I had my first real experience with packers. I’m less certain of my old disdain for those who rely on pack animals, and I’m now much more aware of the long history of these pack outfits in the eastern Sierra. My perspective has changed. While I think that their place must evolve, I also have come to think of them as an intrinsic part of what makes the Sierra the Sierra, and I have acquired a real respect for the wranglers and the work they do.

Photographs: Fall, Photographs: Fall Color, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Round Valley, Autumn Snow

October 11, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sun shines on autumn-dry pastures and cottonwood trees in Round Valley as early autumn snow falls on Mount Tom

After a few early October days and nights photographing fall subjects in Bishop Canyon, on my final morning in camp I woke up to temperatures in the middle thirties and snow pellets, with the surround peaking shrouded in clouds that occasionally parted to reveal new snowfall. I got up, headed out to make a few photographs, and worked for a couple of hours before the storm arrived in earnest, with rain and snow up higher. At this point, photography was becoming a less attractive and even possible project, so it was time to bail out and start my long drive home. I stopped in the town of Bishop long enough to get coffee and breakfast, and then I was off on what would be a rather long drive home — multiple trans-Sierra passes having been closed by the storm.

My plan was to move along efficiently and not stop too much, but nature had other ideas. I had hardly gone ten miles before I looked to my left and saw these beautiful cottonwood trees in the middle of golden-brown pastures, with a huge storm brewing over the flanks of Mount Tom and the rest of the Sierra. I pulled over and found a high spot and waited for the right conditions of light and clouds — enough clearing to make out the shape of the mountain with its crown of newly fallen snow plus some light on the pasture and the trees.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: valley

Eastern Escarpment, Clearing Autumn Storm

Photographer, Long Valley, Dawn

Eastern Sierra Pack Station, Fall Colors

Round Valley, Autumn Snow

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