On Wednesday as I drove up to Kings Canyon National Park I stopped again on a stretch of road which is up at around 5,000 feet (many of the roads in this area have signs advising you of the elevation in 1,000 foot increments) and offered a spectacular view to the southwest. The day before I had taken photos at around 330pm, looking partially into the afternoon sun. Wednesday I passed the same spot around 915am. Here are both three-shot panoramas (looking left to right). The areas closer to me are fairly visible but it was obvious that in the distance were even more things to see, but the view was diminished by haze and air pollution. Earlier in the week as I drove towards Sequoia National Park in the morning (driving east towards the sun) I could barely see that there were huge peaks in the distance but it was too hazy to see them clearly (pun intended). Too bad that instead of flamethrowers Elon Musk can’t invent something to eradicate pollutants in the air. Or maybe Trump could direct Scott Pruitt, the lame EPA Secretary, to actually do something GOOD for the environment….
Afternoon:
Morning:
This year I don’t think I can blame any of this on wildfire smoke. I have been keeping an eye on active fires and so far it looks like the immediate future doesn’t have me very close to any, although that can change very quickly. A friend of mine sent me a link to another resource and it gives me even more information about active fires than the ones I had bookmarked last year. The two fires which had been burning in Colorado earlier this month, near Durango and Silverthorne, have dropped off the “Large Fire” map and, while still burning, are getting further under control. Durango recently got some much needed rain which helped with the fire control effort there.
