CA 158 by Aerie Crag Picnic Area, Mono County, CA, 10/17/2007
Sometimes a road or highway can help make a photograph by more than just allowing you to get there. In the case of this photo the composition itself was made possible by the presence of a road. I noticed this grove of golden aspens (Populus tremuloides) gleaming in the late afternoon sunshine right by the side of June Lake Loop Road (CA 158) on my way south from Grant Lake toward Silver Lake in the Inyo National Forest of the Eastern Sierra. The view you see here is from atop an embankment looking east across the road toward the trees. Without the highway creating this clean edge or beginning to the forest, I never would have found such a neat arrangement! This scene is by Aerie Crag Picnic Area at 7,200 feet above sea level. Towering over the trees and echoing their shape is the rugged Aerie Crag on the western flank of Reversed Peak. USGS surveyors named the 9,473 foot peak for neighboring Reversed Creek. The ancient drainage being reversed by the deposition of morainal debris, Reversed Creek is the only stream in the region that flows toward the mountains, not away. The creek must take a reversed course through this horseshoe canyon before eventually reaching Mono Lake - the ultimate destination for all waters in this basin.
