Mt Whitney Zone Forums The Chat Room Name this location

Here's a silly contest:

Give me the GPS Coordinates of the location of this picture. (Hint: I took the picture last week. It is someplace in California.)



And here's a map you can use to find the coordinates.

Well, we can rule out Disneyland, Knott's, Orange and LA counties...

Vulchahs, vulchas, everywhere vulchas...

Hmm...them vulchahs look like my ILs.

DID I SAY THAT!

Just kidding.

I can't give you GPS anything, but they look like the tufas somewhere along the shore at Mono Lake.

CaT

In a National Monument which has an East entrance and a West entrance, but no through road. The photo was taken at around 10:30 am.

Well, the map is centered on coordinates 36.588998,-118.22970, or N36 35.340 W118 13.782.

Those are the coordinates for the Whitney Portal Campground. Based upon how leafed out that brush/tree is though, am wondering if it could be there, as in my experience over the past several weeks in the Eastern Sierra, about the only trees/brush budding are down in the valleys, like cottonwoods.

I don't think the Portal is a National Monument, although we could argue strenuously for its inclusion, and Doug is well-connected.

> Well, the map is centered on coordinates 36.588998,-118.22970, or N36 35.340 W118 13.782.

The map is centered at Whitney Portal, but the picture is not from there. You can zoom the map out and move it all over the state. I just centered the map there as a starting point for you.

Wagga, I am not sure what national monument you are referring to.

FWIW - those birds look like condors to me. That would probably keep it on the Eastside.

Since those appear to be California Condors, I think wagga was referring to Pinnacles National Monument.

Reminds me of a running argument John and I had in Death Valley a couple of weeks ago. Every time he saw a raven he'd get excited. "It's just a damn crow", I'd growl. "You see plenty back home."

Vultures, condors - same basic scavenger to my generic avian sensibilities. Like ravens/crows, they're just bigger out west.

I'd have to agree with John on the raven vs. crow. Crows are scarcer than hen's teeth in the Eastern Sierra.

As near as I can get the cursor and figure... that picture was taken here 33.812670,-117.920155

By the way... one of my favorite mountains of ALL time (if my guess is correct)....

Yeah Kevin, but it was so much fun yanking his chain! He's such a flora/fauna expert that I couldn't resist. That and the ever-present creosote bush. No lie - I bet I had him identify that plant to me a couple dozen times over the week we were there.

OK, now I get the plant reference in another thread.

When I saw that I thought - "Gotta be creosote, as that's the dominant desert bush where they're located". A bit of triva - some of the locals refer to creosote as "grease wood".

John's a botanical and aviary whiz kid, so I told him that I expected him to identify every living thing we would see during our trip. Creosote is, as you note, one of the most predominant, widely-spread plants in DV, but I think I had him convinced I could never get it straight. Between creosote and ravens/crows, I had him pulling his hair out. He even took a number of photos of creosote so I'd remember.

Sorry to hijack your thread Steve!

I may be wrong but I think Steve is trying to put forth the fact that most any image taken these days especially with cell phones have data in them that modern software can tell you exactly where it was taken.

I don't know how to use any of that stuff though so I could not tell you.

People have raised concerns about cyber stalkers since people have been able to get others addresses since they posted a photo either outside their house or inside it.

No problem on the threadjack, guys. This was all for fun anyway.



Well, Chris, I think you nailed it. ...well, by my calculations, you were of by ten or twenty meters. Anyway, here's the satellite view map.

I wasn't sure if +'tude was guessing or knew already in the first reply above.

Here's the same map (embedded):

For those that still are not sure, switch the "Satellite" in the above map to "Terrain" and it will give it away.

Chris, for your prize, I'll email you our passes from last week.

Nah.. I wasn't that far off.. just at the end of the line on a summer weekend!!! ;-)

WooHoo... that and a quarter will get me... well... a quarter I guess LOL

You know how to tell crows & ravens apart? I turns out that one has an extra one of those big angled wingtip feathers. You could say a difference of a pinion.

That's how I was able to report when the photo was taken. Steve didn't catch that. No extended photo information included, though.

It also helps that a raven is about 50% bigger than a crow & far more gregarious. You usually see at least 2 as they mate for life.

The pinion reference went over my head.

Raven and Crow beaks are a different shape.

Ravens are BIG birds. No way you could mix them up if they were sitting side by side.