Countless millennia of relatively quiet wind, water and chemical erosion reveals an incredible landscape of pleasing tumult at the foot of the sharp, glacier-carved peaks of the Sierra Nevada in southern California.

These jumbled and tumbled features of the Alabama Hills are made of the same stuff, to paraphrase Carl Sagan, as the Sierra Nevada's peaks that tower in cloudless skies just beyond the top of the frame here, but with much different stories since their shared hot origins deep in the earth. The glaciations of the relatively-recent past that shaped the highland alpine reaches didn't much reach or endure in the lowlands this far south in North America.

I've taken a shot very similar to this before on another morning where weather conditions allowed me to focus my attention more solely on the details of the Alabama Hills rather than being drawn always to include the dramatic high peaks beyond, but I wanted to try to catch it again here appreciating the nice orange-pink morning light that visually brought this amazing landscape to life.

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Tags:   Alabama Hills 395 Lone Pine California Nikon Nikkor Landscape Mount Whitney photobenedict Lone Pine Peak Mt. Whitney Sierra Nevada Manzanar Sunrise Rocks Rocky Boulders Crags Clouds Peaks Ridges Hills Slopes Scree Fields Boulder Erosion Eroded Cloudy Wisps Mood High Sierra Dawn Inyo National Forest Eastern Sierra Soft Subtle Light Sierra Crest Morning

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Walking down a tree-lined drive in thick fog, Point Reyes National Seashore, Point Reyes, California.

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Tags:   Travel Point Reyes California Nikon Landscape Mist Long Exposure Fog Trees Cypress photobenedict Tree Tunnel Drive National Park Coastal National Seashore bestcapturesaoi elitegalleryaoi

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Brilliant yellow-orange light seems almost to radiate from the lower leading line of a cloud front pouring over the east edge of the Sierra Nevada--in the Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine, California.

I've never before seen light quite like this in a setting like this. Somehow in some way I can't well put to words there was a feeling in the atmosphere, perhaps something we could call magical realism (if I may borrow a literary term). Even the perception of light angles seemed somehow off.

Several of the northeast mountain slopes shone in golden hues as if lit from the radiating cloud front rather than from the angle of the distant setting sun. A soft breeze gained strength, but not too much, and some sort of midsize animal darted among these jumbled boulders, visible from time to time only as streak of fur in one or another of the small interstitial spaces between the great stones. Colors of winter and some of spring found the sage and grasses, and even the rocks and stones themselves. It was a truly memorable evening in the Eastern Sierra.

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Tags:   Alabama Hills 395 Lone Pine California Nikon Nikkor Landscape Mount Whitney photobenedict Lone Pine Peak Mt. Whitney Sierra Nevada Tuttle Creek Sunset Range of Light Rocks Rocky Boulders Crags Clouds Peaks Ridges Hills Slopes Boulder Cloudy Wisps Magical Orange Yellow Mood High Sierra Evening Inyo National Forest Eastern Sierra Light Sierra Crest

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Few things are more intellectually and conceptually interesting, and confounding, than attempting to understand wave-particle duality and the role of the observer in quantum mechanics (as many of us first explored as young people being shown versions of the famous double-slit experiment). This is not that or anything like it, of course, as these dunes built of miniscule grains can all be appreciated and described in the classical world. But spending a quiet sunrise in Death Valley among these beautiful wave forms visibly borne of billions upon billions of ever-restless particles got me thinking crazy abstractly nonetheless . . .

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Tags:   Mesquite Dunes Death Valley National Park California Sunrise Nikon Landscape Desert Sand Dunes Light Shadow photobenedict Winter Beautiful Dunes Warm Cool Morning Dawn Stovepipe Wells Gold Golden Yellow

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There are countless grander vistas that I love throughout the world, but I'm not sure there's anyplace I more enjoy simply being for sunrise than on the Mesquite Dunes at Death Valley National Park.

If there are whirling winds creating dynamic conditions or well-textured clouds above reflecting an epic spectrum of sunrise color, all the better, but on just an average calm morning under clear skies, I'm still absolutely at peace almost every time when I'm there.

This is little more than a simple snapshot from a morning a few years ago of the familiar light and shadow on the dunes at dawn, but I smiled fondly to myself in recollected feeling when I saw it while going through old files and thus decided to share.

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Tags:   Mesquite Dunes Death Valley National Park California Sunrise Nikon Landscape Desert Sand Dunes Light Shadow photobenedict Winter Beautiful Dunes Warm Cool Morning Dawn Stovepipe Wells Gold Golden Yellow

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