What the San Gabriel Mountains Look like w/out Buildings

This image was stitched and smoothed (sky only) from 6 photos taken on the top of the ridge of the Whittier Narrows Dam. The sky was breathtaking. Most of the buildings and the cities that fill the Valley from the Natural Area to the Foothills were obscured by the vegetation in the Natural Area and in the Flood Zone (Liquefaction Zone) of the Whittier Narrows.

This is where I was standing... on top of the dam which has been paved for bicycles....

See that Edison tower in the middle of the picture? .... I was to the right of it... The street is Rosemeade Boulevard (19).

This is what it looks like after a rain INSIDE of the dam..... (sure is a good thing there is a Dam there.... because... well, I will show you in a bit...)

There is a whole community RIGHT UNDERNEATH THE DAM!

If anything should compromise the Dam these people would be in danger.

Route 19 is where I was standing when I took the panorama shot. The Whittier Narrows Dam is what is between a lot of people and their homes and their families AND a lot of water.

Better, that the Flood Plain not be tampered with, don't ya think?

Snow makes ALL the difference!

After the hard rain storm two week ago, I drove down to Whittier Narrows to see how things were doing at the Dam. There was water up to the Dam and much was diverted. But, as I was inspecting things, I noticed what surrounded me to the north - mountains of snow.

I love snow. However, I love it somewhere I can look at a distance and where I do not have to wear snow shoes. And I know that that snow is melting into the aquifer for me, my neighbors, and mostly the wild outdoors.

So this is what it looked like. I pieced the images together and did not try to make it look like I shot it with my grandfather's Widelux