Owens Valley Pictures, Photos, Photography

Bound by the Sierra Nevada on the west, and the Inyo and White Mountains on the east, is the Owens Valley. The valley is approximately 75 miles long, and the floor is at 4,000 feet, making it one of the deepest in the U.S. The Sierra Nevada Mountains casts the valley in a rain shadow, which makes Owens Valley "the land of little rainÓ.

Mono Lake is an alkaline and hypersaline lake that is a critical nesting habitat for several bird species, and is an unusually productive ecosystem. Mono Lake is believed to have formed at least 760,000 years ago, dating back to the Long Valley eruption. The lake is in a geologically active area, caused by faulting at the base of the Sierra Nevada, and is associated with the crustal stretching of the Basin and Range Province. The lake contains approximately 280 million tons of dissolved salts, with the salinity varying on the amount of water in the lake at any given time. The lake is famous for the Mono Lake brine shrimp, a tiny species of brine shrimp, no bigger than a thumbnail, that are found nowhere else on earth. During the warmer summer months, an estimated 4-6 trillion brine shrimp inhabit the lake.

The eastern Sierras will capture the imagination of even the most well-travelled photographer.