The North Fork Skokomish valley is one of my favorite locations in Olympic National Park. It used to be the closest to my home, when I lived in Olympia. It’s a little farther away now, but I still try to make several trips per year. It’s a low snow year when you can drive up to the Staircase Trailhead in December (unlike this year).
I was coming out of an appointment recently and noticed the clouds overhead were mammatus. I have seen mammatus before, but from a distance, not from directly beneath. Good thing I had my cell phone with me.
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.
A final set of images from my visit to Fort Churchill, these showing the line of trees kept alive by the meager waters of the Carson River.
