Picture of the week

October 13, 2013

Previous weeks

Oct 6, 2013

Older

Fall color blast

Fall colors in a secluded meadow up on the edge of the Eastern Sierras in the Green Creek area. With some scattered clouds that moved in during the late afternoon, I was fortunate to get just the right level of filtered and reflected light for adding to more optimal conditions for fall color photography. I camped up here to also get in some early morning photography of the same area. Some deer hunter that I ran into earlier did not seem too pleased to find other people about to potentially spook their prey, but seemed polite enough about the situation.

This meadow is used by some ranchers for grazing their cattle as surrounded by an electric fence. The cattle were recently moved due to the coming winter season and the fence was deactivated while I was there. I noticed that on the multiple years I have visited here that these ranchers have diverted some of the water around the flat areas in order to provide a more stable ground for their cattle in support of their grazing. Along the small channels the aspen have tended to thrive more than many other areas which seem have had a tough time due to the drought in the second half of winter this year. But exploring some of the adjacent areas of former grasslands that now look more like scrub, I worry that this diversion is part of a regular and methodical pattern that has enabled over-grazing of a meadow until it is almost destroyed, and then moving on to a new section and repeating. This probably can't be good for other wildlife population that can also thrive in these meadows like the Inyo Mule Deer.

Looking at the devastation of the previously grazed meadows here, It reminds me of a characterization given by John Muir to the sheep that used to overgraze the lands of the Sierras, in which he referred to them as "hooved locusts". It will be interesting to see what this place will look like when I return next year...

Home