Light of the Sierra

So, this happened. I could not believe my eyes, yet there it was. A massive dust storm caused by 45-50mph winds all day in the Eastern Sierra had reduced visibility to about 4 miles, and was making shooting in the Alabama Hills area very challenging.

The vibrant light rays you see here are a form of inverted Crepuscular Rays that occurred as a result of the recently-set sun shooting beams of light through the dust clouds that had been kicked up into the atmosphere above the mountains all day, creating an amazing halo effect over Mount Whitney and the Eastern Sierra. I ran around frantically and managed to photograph this scene, Mobius Arch, and Lathe Arch all while this light show was going on, so I'll be sharing those images later!

Later that night while shooting the Milky Way over the granite arches here, my Rokinon 14mm f-2.8 lens fell prey to the extreme winds as they picked up my tripod and thrashed it against a massive granite boulder as I reached to get something out of my camera bag. Thud! Crunch… Wow, I underestimated their power. That won't be happening again!

For now, I'm just glad I came away with some images of this amazing natural phenomenon.
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