Storm Clouds Over La Canada-Flintridge

I'm using stitched photos more and more in place of shooting one picture with a wide angle lens. The advantage is I can use a longer focal length so the background doesn't get pushed so far away with the wide angle perspective while I can still get the entire scene in. That's what I did here while walking in the hills above La Canada-Flintridge during stormy, hot, humid weather. I took four pictures going from the top of the clouds and down, overlapping by a third. I did a bit of cropping and came up with this.

No Drought About It

My friends and I returned to an old favorite, Bailey Canyon, in the San Gabriel Mountains. The bone-dry mountains, I might add. Bailey isn't especially glamorous even when it has water flowing through it but it's a great place — with more than a dozen rappels — to practice tough maneuvers like dropping off large chock stones. On the final rappel, a usually gushing waterfall now dry, we practiced self-rescue while dangling on the rope. A pleasant way to spend a Sunday.