Tag Archives: wilderness

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

Three Backpackers, Alpine Terrain

December 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three backpackers hiking above timberline in the Southern Sierra Nevada wilderness, approach an alpine lake

This photograph is a bit unusual for me to share in that it isn’t particularly about the image as a photograph but more about the photograph as a record of a place and a time. It comes from a backpacking trip with friends into a remote section of my favorite part of the Sierra Nevada, the high and wild areas of the Southern Sierra within and around the Kern River’s upper drainage. This is an area that is not easily accessible — certainly not a lightweight weekend trip! — and where the terrain is unlike that elsewhere in the range. There is a huge and very high elevation plateau here, at or above timberline, with expansive views to multiple surrounding ranges, all of which feature peaks reaching to and above the 13,000′ to 14,000′ range. Any access route requires a long walk or passage over very difficult terrain, and sometimes involves both.

We entered the area by way of two high passes, one of which is over 13,000′ high, dropped onto the plateau, and walked to a favorite timberline camping location by a stream. (We would follow this stream up to the crest to exit via another high and difficult pass a few days later.) From here we left the main route and headed off into an area that none of us has visited before, an area with few trails and few visitors. This photograph evokes, for me at least, a number of sensations and recollections: what it is like to pass over difficult and nearly trail-less country with a group of like-minded friends, the sense of vast space in these open and rugged places, and the freeing feeling of passing over this country into places that I have not previously visited. Such high, open, rugged terrain is not for everyone — but I love it!

Our group has been into this area several times, and over a period of decades I had passed though many times.

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

Great Western Divide

December 6, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sierra Nevada backcountry near the Great Western Divide

The back story to this photograph could end up being quite long, but I’ll try to constrain it a bit. First, credit to my friend David Hoffman, whose recent effort to share a bunch of his black and white photographs has inspired me to share a few of mine that haven’t been public before, and to go back to some older images that have languished in my raw file archives and do the work necessary to bring them to the light of day. This is one of those photograph, from a trip into a wonderful and remote section of the Southern Sierra that I undertook with group of friends over four years ago. The general area is one that I had long wanted to visit, since a strange college backpacking trip that had one of the lakes in the area as its objective, but which was derailed when my buddies and I realized that we were not up the rather intense trip we had embarked upon, and we ended up revising our trip in mid-stream — and we ended up many miles away from here. On this 2010 trip, many decades later, I finally got into this area that I had thought about during the intervening years.

The actual target destination on this 2010 trip was a particular alpine lake that I had been curious about since that original visit. We did go to that lake, a high barren lake above timberline, on this trip. Ironically, that destination from so many years ago did not particularly excite me when we got there — we stayed briefly and then moved on. But the place we ended up after that was very special. We looped into an area far up in the upper drainage of the Kern River, a location that is off the beaten track and clearly not visited that often. Our campsite near the location of this photograph showed virtually no signs of previous visits, a rare thing in the Sierra. This beautiful landscape of timberline lakes and meadows, perhaps my favorite sort of Sierra place, sits at the base of huge alpine canyons leading to massive and rugged summits. Fortunately, its remoteness and the difficulty of the approach is likely to sustain the solitude of the place.

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

Stained Granite Slabs, Small Tree

December 4, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary tree grows among broken slabs of stained granite, Yosemite National Park

I suppose that this photograph also is at least partly of the “brave little tree” school, since there is indeed a little tree standing in an improbable looking place at the far side of this jumble of exfoliated and broken granite slabs. I wouldn’t say, though, that the tree is the primary subject — I think that it is more of a “surprise” that you might see only after first registering the shapes, textures, and colors of the rocks that fill the frame. It also may help establish a sense of scale for the broken slabs, though there are aspects of this image that work to defeat that possibility, too.

I remember the general place where I made this photograph, and I might be able to narrow down the location a bit if I went back to my files to see what I shot before and after. But the specific spot probably doesn’t matter that much. It is in the Yosemite backcountry, in a large area of granite slabs and bowl-like terrain where many of the rocks are stained an unusual and unusually intense reddish-brown color. It had rained overnight and was still raining off and on, so I worked with the soft light that comes with the passing clouds, making photographs in between the passing showers.

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

Small Tree, Granite, Morning Sun

December 3, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A small pine finds a foothold in a small crack on an immense glacier-sculpted granite slab, Yosemite National Park

This photograph is connected to quite a few others that I have posted recently, and in multiple ways. One of the subjects that I focused on during our time photographing at this Yosemite backcountry location was the many small trees growing tenuously in small cracks and pockets in this large bowl of granite and among nearby granite slabs. It seems almost a rule that in the natural world something will manage to find a way to grow in almost any location where growth is remotely possible. These trees certainly seem to illustrate that idea, as they sometimes seem to have nothing more than a thin crack in otherwise solid granite in which to put down roots. This one grows part way up the incline of a sloping bowl that faces west, so the morning light doesn’t arrive until rather late. I photographed as the line of sunlight worked its way across the tree and toward the textured slabs beyond.

I have heard a photographer friend humorously refer to photographs like this as “brave little tree” shots. It certainly is a popular concept. While I often like to think that photographs may speak simply as images whose components of light and texture and shape and color evoke an emotional response, it doesn’t escape my notice that photographs also, partially through the expectation that photographs contain true images of things, may also resonate in other ways — and that a “brave little tree” may evoke connections to other “brave little” things and ideas, and that these associations may be personal and specific to each viewer.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: wilderness

Three Backpackers, Alpine Terrain

Great Western Divide

Stained Granite Slabs, Small Tree

Small Tree, Granite, Morning Sun

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