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I remember very clearly the first time; I saw the picture of the beautiful Owens River at the Bishop chamber of commerce visitor center. The image immediately grabbed my interest with its combination of all significant elements of a landscape shot. The picture was taken from a high vantage point, with the cracked rock cliffs serving the purpose of foreground interest. The meandering Owens river as the focal point, its banks thick with vegetation standing out from the barren high desert terrain. The majestic peaks of Sierra Nevada rising in the background completing the visual narration. It took me two more trips to figure out the name of the vantage point and its location.
The name of the vantage point is Volcanic Tablelands, and it’s only a short drive away from Bishop. But you have to find the bone-jarring desert road from a multitude of 4wd trails that seems to go nowhere. And the reason the location is not advertised is due to the presence of ancient petroglyphs that dot the terrain. The town takes special care to make sure that photos are not geotagged to protect the petroglyphs from vandalism. If you are planning on camping here, a word of caution, be mindful of the rattlers, I saw three of them crossing the road while driving back once. A gorgeous sunset is almost guaranteed here with the Sierra mountains providing some stunning drama in the sky. Just make sure that you wait after the sun goes behind the peaks.
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Owen's river is one of the most confused river I have ever seen, when you look at it from some elevation, it seems as if the river just couldn't makeup which way to go. So it meanders through the Owen's valley twisting around making u-turns after u-turns.
I had this shot in mind since the first time I was in the area but had no idea where to make the shot, I was thinking of getting a shot from the sierra overlook located in the white mountains drive but it was simply too far away from the river to make an interesting shot. While we were at our cabin, I was looking through the multitude of brochures we collected, I came across the amazing feature just north of Bishop called Volcanic Tablelands, a location known for its petroglyphs, but there were some vandalism reported and hence there were no maps available for the place online. The Volcanic Tableland area has no paved roads and its pretty difficult to get to some of these locations.
So we headed to the Bishop chamber of commerce visitor center and after convincing the lady there that I was indeed a photographer and not a vandal, she gave us some guidance on locations that would look have good views of the valley below. So we headed out that evening to the location and reached a fair bit before the sunset, and the view was spectacular. I made this stitch pano shot to emphasis on the vastness of this beautiful desert landscape. Plus we also got to see one of the most vivid sunsets we have seen in a while, but more on that later. Thanks for visiting and have a nice day..