Off topic - USA west coast pictures

[HwitVlf]

I've been on out of town to a few pretty places recently and thought I'd post some of the pictures. They're from California and I think most people here are from the East Coast or over seas so maybe someone will find the scenery interesting.

This is King's Canyon National Park (a nature preserve) which is actually just up the road from where I live, but I don't go there too often.

The mountains here are solid marble and about 6000ft. The valley was eroded out by the pictured King's River which is pretty much a raging death trap from snow melt this time of year -over 2000 cubic feet per second of ice cold water over jagged rocks. The bridge is made of huge granite chunks- straight out of King's Field! ‎ 


If you look close, you can see white 'poles' on the mountain in the above picture. They're a local cactus plant called 'yucca'. It grows 7-9 feet tall and gets beautiful white flower clusters. Note the waterfall in left-background of the first picture. ‎ 




The Yucca spines are deadly tough. I've gotten impaled on them more than once while hiking.


These are from of the Pacific Ocean which is about 100 miles away from King's Canyon. They're pretty typical for most of California's coast line.



Sea Lions are evidently quite the pests. In this picture, they took over a pier and were sunning themselves. The big one in the middle is a male. ‎ 


A relatively low range of mountains (1000~5000ft) runs up most of California's coastline so there's usually not a lot of flatland for towns before you hit steep hills. A lot of the coastal cities are carved into the side of hills because of this. This picture shows the coastal range as seen from near the ocean.


If anyone else wants to post pictures of their locale, I love that kind stuff! :)