On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
I have always associated The Palisades with casinos – just something you learn by osmosis, I guess. Thanks to Bill’s adventures, I can mentally cross off “casinos”, which never interested me, replacing it with beautiful mountain peaks, and a study in blue. ~WaterGirl
?BillinGlendaleCA
The Palisades are a semicircular group of mountain peaks characterized by a wall of granite on the eastern side stretching from Birch Mountain in the south to Cloudripper in the north. There are some mountains within this bowl formed by the Palisade walls, Kid Mountain (try a Google search to get info on that), Alice Mountain, and Buck Mountain. While these peaks are of a lower elevation than the Palisades they do sometimes block the view since they’re a few miles closer. The easiest way to see the section of a photo that contains the Palisades is to look for Birch Mountain, it has a disk shaped snow patch on the south (left) side of the summit. I was originally going to shoot these peaks from Big Pine, but decided some distance to the east and elevation would be helpful, I found they short dirt road off the highway east of Big Pine a few hundred feet above the Owens Valley floor.
Closeup view of the Palisades, with Palisade Crest on the left, Mt. Jepson in the middle and Mt. Sil on the right.
The snowy Palisades tower above the Owens Valley, you can see the Owens River at the bottom of the photo.
The Palisades are to the right of center with Big Pine showing up as a green patch of trees below them.
This IR shot is similar to the pervious visible color shot, but I tried an experiment, I gave the foreground a sepia tone. Notice the Moon in the upper left.
The Owens River runs along the bottom of the photo, with Big Pine just above it on the left. Due to the height of the mountains on each side of the Owens Valley, it’s the deepest valley in the US.
I used the color from the previous photo for this infrared photo of the Owens Valley and the Palisades. You may notice that many of the hills in the foreground are reddish, these hills are volcanic cones.
Panorama of the eastern Sierra and Owens Valley stretching from Timemahe Reservoir in the south to Bishop in the north. If you look carefully, you can see the satellite dishes of the Caltech Owens Valley Radio Observatory.
A Little Planet representation of the Owens Valley (it was actually produced from the panorama in the previous photo).
Baud
I’d like to hike that.
JPL
@Baud: I enjoy imagining from the comfort of my home. Amazing pics, Bill and thank you for sharing.
Dmbeaster
Well, well. I have been hiking and climbing the Palisades for years. It is the most spectacular high country in the High Sierra, and collectively the toughest peaks.
The peak names are wrong on the first pictures. From right to left, the peak names are Sill (that massive tooth), Jepson (low bump in the middle) and Palisades Crest (the many peaklets on the left – really just the ridge line). North Palisade is slightly out of view to the right. Slightly out of view to the left is Norman Clyde followed by Middle Palisade. I have been up Thunderbolt, Starlight, North Palisade, Sill and Middle Palisade. I did by BMTC winter course up the south fork of Big Pine creek, learning ice axe and crampon work looking up to Mt. Sill in 1972.
Luv it. I go whenever I can talk someone into it, and have done solo trips when I could not.
Dmbeaster
In the second picture, the foreground ridge obscures a lot of the Palisades. Sill is the obvious big tooth in the middle. The spectacular peaks to the right, Polemonium, North Palisade, Starlight and Thunderbolt, are blocked from view. You can see two lower spires further right from those, which are Winchell and Agassiz.
Looking to the left of Sill are the two peaks mentioned above, and then Norman Clyde and Middle Palisade are mostly blocked from view. There is a tiny speck of that spectacular ridge system poking over the foreground ridge.
Albatrossity
Glad to see that you made it to the Eastern Sierras! Great shots!
sherparick
You can almost sense you are looking at a stop action of movement looking at the Western and Eastern escarpments of the Owens Valley, the western boundary of the “Basin & Range” landscape of North America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basin_and_Range_Province Relative to other parts of North America, this is relatively “new land” sitting over the remains of a subducted tectonic plate.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I hiked a bit north of there very long ago, it’s pretty country.
@JPL: Thanks.
@Dmbeaster:
@Dmbeaster: Thanks for the correction, it was pretty difficult to see what was there from where I was shooting, especially with portions obscured by the foreground peaks.
@Albatrossity: I wish I’d headed up earlier for more snow on the mountains.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sherparick: It’s a fascinating area geologically, if you go a bit north you’ll end up in the Long Valley Caldara.
Quercus
The Palisades? Yeah, right. You can’t fool me; that’s not Jersey.
kindness
My Palasaides are the cliffs across the Hudson River from NYC on the Jersey side stretching up river almost to the Tappan Zee Bridge (now rebuilt as the Mario Cuomo Bridge).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Quercus:
@kindness: Those are baby palisades. We also have Pacific Palisades here in LA.
ribber
If you had kept going up 168 thru Westgaard Pass, you come to Deep Springs College, an isolated free liberal arts college with 30 students on a cattle ranch.
J R in WV
Great pictures of fabulous geology!
I can’t see the moon, nor the radio-telescopes… probably just my tiny tablet screen.
Thanks, Bill!
I’m sitting in my doctor’s office, regularly scheduled appointment, wearing my giant respirator with lavender filters, hoping to remain viral free!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@ribber: Took a look, isolated is right. That was about 25 miles east of where I took the pics.
@J R in WV: Thanks, the radio telescopes are on the right about a 1/4 of the way in on the valley floor. They look like little white specks.
I zoomed in the shot so you can see them better: https://flic.kr/p/2j8s9b4.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: @Dmbeaster:
I can edit the descriptions if you like – someone will just have to be very specific about what I should change, and where. :-)
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No graboid pictures. I’m disappointed.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Been a long while since the Lone Pine quake, you’d have to go south to Ridgecrest for more recent activity.
Bob7094
@Quercus:
Tuesdays and Thursdays are bargain days at Palisades Amusement Park.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Bob7094: I didn’t see the amusement park, must have been behind Mt. Alice, anyway I was up there on a Friday. //
Bishop Bag
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Hey Bill! Guess where I live? Started going camping with my Dad up Big Pine Creek in 1961 when I was about 11. Some time when you decide to come back the Rock Creek Basin out of Tom’s Place is one of my favorite places to take relatives from Southern California hiking. Relatively UNsteep hike into absolutely beautiful mountain vistas. Somebody needs to set up a Juicers Meetup sometime in the Eastern Sierra!
Don’t know if this will work…
Dammit! How do I insert a photo into a comment????
Bob7094
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It was torn down in 1971. That’s why you can’t see it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: OK, replace:
with this:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Bob7094: Heh, I liked my explanation better.
@Bishop Bag: OK, I’ll hazard a guess, near Bishop?
(Looks at map…)
OK, I see the Rock Creak Basin(wasn’t Rock Creek the name of the town in Blazing Saddles?), that area looks incredible.
Only the folk with front page powers can post pics in comments, us mere mortals can’t.
ETA: I’ve only been to Bishop once. Back in my teenage days(so very long ago) my Boy Scout troop did a 50 mile hike(over 5 days) and one of the training hikes was either out of Lake Sabrina or South Lake.
stinger
Great pictures of a beautiful site.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@stinger: Thanks.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: done!