scenic Mono Lake with Caption

For sure this will garner some 3/3 ratings, because people won't get it. Well, the guard

rail is in the image for a reason. It is something that the highway department

(unintentionally) provided a place for people to write captions about the view, and that's

why I took the picture.

Which proves that we don't need to wander around in the nature and wilderness to take pictures of landscapes, ha! Just stop the car and there you are!

 

PDE

Yes, indeed; it's our tax dollars at work! Too bad about the compression of this image. In the original, you can see that a lot of the comments on the rail actually have some thing to do with the view, or with environmental issues.

This is just below Conway Summit on U.S. 395, isn't it? I stopped there about three weeks ago with fellow PNers Ray Banfield and Leo Burkey; and we commented on the railing too. Nice shot. Cheers! Chris

You nailed it. I was heading south on 395 and came around the bend to see what looked almost like an RV convention, there were so many people parked and looking at the view.

It's a great idea to capture both the scene and the signs of viewers' appreciation of it but, as you say, it needs a big print to do it justice. The stickers represent quite a crowd of sightseers over the months - you can imagine all these shadowy figures in the foreground sharing the view.

 

Weren't you tempted to go down the track to see the lake from close-up?

 

Best wishes, Jonathan

Actually, the "track" you see in the photo is a four-lane interstate highway; a continuation, in fact, of the one with this overlook. This is a BIG place. I took the road by the lake, but did not go down to the shore this time. Should you ever be in the states, though, it's well worth the trip. The lake is one of the oldest in the world, apparently well over a million years of continuous existence. It's briny, and has unusual rock formations called tufa domes that are formed around mineral springs. The City of Los Angeles made a pretty good attempt at killing the lake this last century, by diverting the water flowing to it, and causing the surface level to drop by 60 feet. Work by the Mono Lake Committee, and a lot of litigation, have forced L.A. to begin restoring the lake level (though it will never be as deep as it was historically).