Originally Posted by kolibri Or in GIMP! Now I just have to decide which black and white version I like better. Anyone hate the toning on either one?

YAY for GIMP.

Yeah. I like the B&W with the most contrast; the first one after the color version. Thing is since you shoot RAW, You can just do what many folks do and keep this photo, work on it here and there. When you learn a new technique, come back to it and give it another go. When I looked at it in my fav editing program it had tons of info there, and plenty of room to grow.

Originally Posted by kolibri Nice image, what time of year was that? My image was actually 100% monsoon moisture. I think this was before the fire north of Sacramento broke out. I stood on top of Whitney in the middle of a damn cloud, couldn't see a thing to the east at all, nada, zip, zilch. Couldn't see the valley at all. Had some intermittent clearing to the west as we came down, this was one of the times when the clouds lifted a bit. But, we had no nice snow fields anywhere for contrast. .

That image was mid-July after a greater snowfall winter.

Your haze was smoke and monsoon moisture. Neither the smoke nor the monsoon came from Sacramento. Heavy moisture is usually brought to the Sierra in summer by cyclonic flow around low pressure systems. This summer the eastern Sierra hasn't been without at least a light smoke haze except immediately after local rains. Doug Sr who runs the Whitney Portal Store calls what he's seen this year "milky air". To see the number of fires that have been burning this summer (or any time you want to plan big views in the west), check out the inciweb.org site. The information there, combines with current weather system information to let you know how to expect smoke to move. In the eastern Sierra in spring and fall you should also check the national forest web sites to learn about prescribed burns if you want to travel there to shoot long vistas.

Dale B. Dalrymple
http://dbdimages.com