Location: North of Red Lake, Highway 88, Carson Pass, California
Created: 09/29/2013 5:13:59 pm
Camera: EOS Canon 7D
Lens: EF24-105 f/4.0L IS @ 24mm
Aperture: f/20; 1/15 sec.; HDR 3 x 5 x 3 Bracketed Pano; ISO 100

I followed a hunch and drove up an unmarked dirt service road above Red Lake on Hwy 88. The washboard road was narrow, barely wide enough between trees. I continued winding up and passed through full-autumn aspen trees until it reached the end. On my left, out of frame, is all of Hope Valley. The image was captured as a 7-shot vertical pano, stitched together in Photoshop. You could sense an energy in this meadow. The sound of a gentle breeze and the sage’s fragrance seemed to transport me to some land reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional Middle–earth. My favorite part of the image is the cauliflower-like cloud formation over Jeff Davis Peak and the Nipple. The cloud was caused by heat from the developing Sierra forest fires; it is not smoke, but a raincloud. Any sufficiently robust heat source, such as a forest fire, can produce this cloud formation. The heat creates a powerful up-draught, channeling dust and smoke from the ground into a narrow chimney, forming the mushroom's stalk and condensing water vapor into clouds. This heat chimney continues to rise until it meets an obstruction in the form of a boundary layer that forms the mushroom’s cap; and grows into an (extra) terrestrial Sierra Sky.