Convict Lake, Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.
Convict Lake (elevation 7,850 feet) is in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and part of The Sherwin Range.
I took this photograph shortly after sunrise in the fall, facing west toward Yosemite National Park.
In the midground of the photograph is beautiful fall foliage with yellows and oranges. The foreground has a large piece of driftwood
sitting in the crystal clear lake water. You can see the rocky lake bed through Convict Lake's water.
The most prominent mountain in this photograph is Laurel Mountain, the gray mountain in the background that doesn't have any
fall colors growing over it. To simplify the amazing geologic formations here, this is largely metamorphic rock from the Paleozoic era.
If you look closely at the print, you can see the Laurel-Convict Fault line and some really neat folds. This is considered a thrust
fault. The rust colored rock near the fault is Squares Tunnel Formation. The geology of this area is really fascinating.
Just to the north of that fold, is the route (Northeast Gully, Laurel Mountain 5.2)that John Mendenhall & James Van Patten
took in 1930 when they sucessfully completed the first belayed rope climb in the Sierra Nevadas.
The colorful slope on the left side of the photograph is Mount Morrison (elevation 12,241 feet), named for Sheriff Robert
Morrison. Sheriff Morrison was killed here during a shootout in 1871 involving convicts who had escaped from the Nevada State
Penitentiary. Prior to that incident, Convict Lake had been known as Monte Diable Lake.
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