"Sierras seen from White Mountains"
Last spring I took a photo trip along the Eastern Sierras. The west side of the Sierras is the wet side, as it faces the Pacific Ocean. On the west side we have Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. The Sierras are so high (Mt. Whitney is here, the highest point in the continental United States) that most rain clouds can't make it over the mountains, so the Eastern Sierras and beyond is desert. Giant Sequoia trees on the west side, tumbleweeds on the east side.
The desert side, though stark, is ruggedly beautiful. Hundreds of movies have been filmed in the Alabama Hills, which are giant piles of rocks in the shadow of Mt. Whitney. Mono Lake is the oldest lake in North America and it's two and a half times saltier and eighty times more alkaline than the ocean. The only thing that can live in the water are a few kinds of fly larvae and millions of tiny, tiny brine shrimp. Death Valley, the lowest place in the United States, is roughly a hundred miles straight east of Mt. Whitney, the highest place.
There used to be another big lake at the base of the Eastern Sierras, but Los Angeles drank it. I'm not kidding, L.A. drank it. Not a burp of water left.
The pictures here are watercolors I made on my computer from actual photographs I took. I got really lucky with the weather. Despite being a desert, It was raining with lots of neat, dark clouds.
