Yosemite Valley from Inspiration Point

This sweeping view of the Yosemite Valley in winter was made from Inspiration Point on the Mariposa Trail. Yosemite's highest peak, El Capitan, rises at the left, a granite buttress 3,604 feet (1,098 meters) from the valley floor. At center right, almost lost in the photograph's dizzying detail, Bridalveil Fall streams down the mountainside, 620 feet (189 meters) of flowing white mist. Barely visible, Half Dome's crest forms an arc in the snowy center distance. The narrow foreground strip reveals that Carleton Watkins's camera was mere feet from the edge of Inspiration Point, giving the viewer a solid sense of being there, literally on the edge.