Tag Archives: valley

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Kolob Terraces Area, Sunset

December 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sunset on the valleys, ridges, and cliffs of the Kolob Terraces area of Zion National Park

The photographs in the series from which this image comes were my last of the day. We had explored this high and slightly less crowded area of Zion National Park in the afternoon (after exploring another less busy area in the morning) and started heading back down in the early evening. With red rock, fall colors (there were still a few aspens and other trees with autumn colors), open and well-lit terrain, and lots of beautiful red rock, there was plenty to see as the light color warmed.

We had just made a stop that I suspected would be the last of the day, pausing there to photograph evening light on a meadow. We loaded the equipment back up and started down the road, planning to head out, but we soon came around a bend and saw this wild and beautifully lit scene of valleys and cliffs and peaks laid out in front of us. We stopped right there and, if I recall correctly, I pretty much set up my camera and tripod right in the roadway, working quickly before the light disappeared completely from the lower slopes and the valley.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Low Water, San Luis Reservoir

November 25, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Low water at the San Luis Reservoir, Autumn

California is currently in the third of three years of historically bad drought conditions. Water is power in the state — and a lot of politics has gone on around the acquisition of water, the use (and misuse) of water, and the construction of water projects. I’ve lived in the state long enough to have been in the valley now filled by this huge reservoir before it was filled. I have a faint memory of traveling across the valley bottom in a car with my dad at the wheel, looking at things that he told me were soon to be submerged — I have a specific recall of a bit of roadway and a bridge. That valley is long gone now, having been filled by the late 1960s.

The reservoir is an unusual one. The water it holds is pumped up into the reservoir from below and stored from year to year, producing some electrical power when the water flows back down from the reservoir to the valley. Essentially, water goes both directions though the dam! At the end of this third drought year the water level is extremely low — as low as I recall seeing it — and some of the huge structures at the dam are well above the water line. This is partly a photograph of those structures, partly a record of a phase in California’s water crisis, and partly a juxtaposition of angles and surfaces and curves, all under beautiful hazy late-autumn California light.

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

Hope Valley, Autumn — Five Photographs

November 23, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

This set of five photographs features scenes of autumn in Hope Valley in the California Sierra Nevada.

A colorful grove of autumn aspen trees, backed by pine forest, Hope Valley, California

A “wall of trees” photograph made in the evening at Hope Valley, California near the peak of the 2014 aspen color season.

Forest and meadows with fall color, Picketts Junction, Hope Valley

Fall meadow colors along the creek in Hope Valley, California near Picketts Junction were highway 88 and 89 meet.

Aspen color and pine forest, Hope Valley, California

Brilliant autumn aspen foliage in shades of yellow and orange in the upper portion of Hope Valley, just east of Carson Pass in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Autumn forest including willow and aspen stretches up Hope Valley toward Carson Pass

A giant pine forest, intermixed with the autumn colors of aspen trees, extends across Sierra Nevada slopes toward Carson Pass.

A colorful grove of autumn aspen trees, backed by pine forest, Hope Valley, California

Photographed in evening light, the curving shape of a grove of autumn aspen trees with colors of green, yellow, and orange.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Burr Trail, Strike Valley

November 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Burr Trail route as it ascends from Strike Valley towards the ridge of Capitol Reef National Park

The Burr Trail is one of the back routes through this section of Utah. It ranges from some decent paved sections to portions that are gravel and somewhat “rustic.” This is one of the latter section, at least for a short distance, as it climbs from the valley seen in the photograph to the top of a ridge behind my camera position inside Capitol Reef National Park before heading west toward Boulder.

This climb exposes some amazing geology, most of which I can only understand in the most basic of terms. This is the Waterpocket Fold area, where the strata are inclined steeply upwards as they rise to the west, and almost everywhere the evidence of these ancient layers of rock is abundant. Here the road enters a narrow canyon at the edge of the valley and soon climbs steeply up to the ridge that runs north-south for a good distance inside the national park. The view here is across the valley — with its central ridge “rib” — toward the steep cliffs on the opposite side of the valley and then rough terrain rising to mountains beyond.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: valley

Kolob Terraces Area, Sunset

Hope Valley, Autumn — Five Photographs

Burr Trail, Strike Valley

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