At the foot of Mount Whitney-Sierra Nevada

This week I am proud to present a panorama by Donald Bain from Virtual Guidebooks one of the largest panoramasites on the web. Read more about Virtual Guidebooks in the Feature site for Februar.I let Donald himself tell about the panorama:

The Sierra Nevada mountains of California rise slowly from the west, mantled with forest and dotted with lakes. But on the eastern side they drop away abruptly, enormous cliffs facing the desert of Owens Valley. This eastern escarpment is a massive wall of granite rising as much as 10,000 feet above the valley floor. This picture was taken on a stormy spring day, right at the eastern base of the range.
Elevation here is about 6500 feet above sea level, the valley below is at 3700, and the mountains to the west rise to over 14,000 feet. The temperature that day was just above freezing, and roving thunderstorms were dropping rain and snow on the mountains and over the valley. The vegetation here is characteristic of the high desert, with sagebrush and pinyon pines, both highly aromatic.