The canyons and valleys on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California offer an amazing variety of natural adventure and scenery! U.S. Highway 395 from Lone Pine in the south to Bridgeport in the north is considered the heart of the Eastern Sierra Nevada scenic area. This is a land of beauty, contrasts, extremes, and oddities: deserts, 14,000 foot peaks, volcanic domes, craters, basalt columns, tufa stacks, lakes, cascading creeks, and lush forests juxtaposed with desolate landscapes. Here Mount Whitney - the highest peak in the U.S. outside of Alaska - is only 85 miles from the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere: Badwater, Death Valley. This land is also home to some of the oldest living trees in the world: the Bristlecone Pine. I especially love to explore the eastern Sierra in autumn when the aspens and other deciduous trees provide a pageant of color against the rugged mountain backdrop.