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dirtbear

Paul Duval
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The "Dirtbear" decided based on my weather observations on the NOAA site that the Owens Valley might be cracking with some great weather for making images, this weekend.  I left the house in Long Beach, Caly about 11 a.m. . First stop for gas and "pass" was Mojabe about half way to my final destination.  The skies were full of clouds, some of the lenticular variety, the afternoon was shaping up to be promising. When I reached the Coso Jct area the skies were still well populated and the Cinder Cone by Cinder road was inviting me to stop and break out my camera. There was a little ephemeral lake behind the Volcano, which I figured would be dry so I ventured back there and was rewarded. The lake was dry and it's surface was broken by interesting patterns, so I made images including some image groups for later stitching into panoramas. All in all it wasn't a bad first stop.


to be continued....
      
      Back onto 395 in the old iron lung I pointed her north and moved out onto an almost empty highway. On the Thomas Payne wildflower hotline they had mentioned a spot that was coming up . A sideroad just before Olancha called Cactus Flats Rd. I had some time so I decided to explore the road. Well unfortunately the bloom was "bust" pretty much over and done. However there was a pretty interesting Joshua Tree grove along the road. There were some lenticular clouds in the background that added good variation to the sky, so I pulled over in a wide spot by some nice Joshua trees to make some images.  I think I did capture a few nice scenes, but wanting to get to Lone Pine I decided to continue on....


to be continued....


After arriving in Lone Pine and finding many available rooms, I acquired accommodations at the Mt. Whitney Motel. For the amazing price of 49 dollars. The fan in the bathroom sounded like it was about to fall out of the ceiling, but I could deal with that don't turn it on.  I got out the cell called home to check in, like a good boy. Stored the luggage and headed out to Whitney Portal Rd. Along Horseshoe Meadows road there was a good view back to the Inyo's where the late afternoon light was was softly illuminating the mountainsides capped with glorious clouds.  So I made a few images here.


To be continued...


I got back out onto the portal road and headed up towards Mt. Whitney. The sky was completely full of clouds and as I started up the  mountainside, it started to drizzle and it was snowing up higher. About halfway up I turned into a turnout where there was a nice vista of the Owens Valley and the Inyo Mts. I took three images to stitch into a panorama.


To be continued....


It was time to head back to Lone pine for dinner, which I took at "The Totem" restaurant . I had the rib eye special a Diet Soda and a bit of a read while I ate. Food is pretty good at this restaurant. After dinner there was still some light but the western horizon looked so dark and ominous with clouds I doubted there would be any sunset color but I headed back into the Alabama Hills anyway. I went to the west away from the Mobius Arch parking lot  and parked . There was a good glow in the sky of the rocks with many fast moving clouds a continuously changing scene and there was good light on the Inyos to the east from a large rent in the clouds.
I took images in both directions.


To be continued......


After a short night in a hard bed I arose at 4:30 wishing magic hour light didn't come so damn early in the morning. I quickly got dressed gathered up the gear and set out for a morning at the gates of Mt. Whitney hoping for an epic Alpenglow. Well as often happens Mt. Whitney was a no show but the sunrise over the Inyo's was spectacular enough to make up for it. Little did I know that the faint Rainbow I saw at dawn was the first of a four Rainbow morning....

To be continued...
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Last Photo excursion 6/4/2011 by dirtbear, journal