This is taken on the road up the the Bristlecone Pine area of the White Mountains in California, above the town of Big Pine. (The dead tree is not a bristlecone.) This viewpoint is at about 8000 feet and the view here is looking south.
The town of Lone Pine, California is located along Highway 395 northwest of Death Valley National Park. Lone Pine was a location used in many western movies and some TV shows. It also provides one of the access points for climbing Mt Whitney (the highest point in the continental 48). The image above shows a clearing storm moving right to left across the Sierras. In the distance is just a sliver of Owens Lake (drained to provide water for Los Angeles).
The image below is taken from about the same location, but looking east towards the White Mountains. Lone Pine lies in the valley.
These pine woods are located in East Central Oregon … a much different kind of woods than around my home in Western Washington. Much drier country resulting in much less undergrowth and mostly all pine instead of the Doug Fir, Hemlock and Cedar of Western Washington.
I have no idea what caused the wavy pattern in the sky on #3. There was some haze, but nothing that was making a visible line while I was taking the photo.
When I use “Crop” here, I’m referring to the photo technique, not the agricultural term. These images are both from the same exposure, just cropped differently. I couldn’t decide which I liked better, so included them both. Looking at them on the screen at this moment, my favorite is #2.
This is one of my oldest digital images … shot with an Olympus E-10 over 20 years ago. I love the dimples in the water’s surface from the reeds and grasses. An example too of how an overcast sky can provide good light … a clear sky with a sharp reflection would have resulted in a much different image.