One of our favorite things in wintertime Southern California is the snow. From our neighborhood in Oceanside we can see the two-mile high San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains with snow packs that often cover a vertical mile of their steep sides. When snow levels drop we can also see snow on San Diego County's mile-high mountains. Depending upon where we are in our community, the major mountains are about 60 to 70 miles aways. That's also the same distance as Catalina Island and on a recent winter day we drove to a 1,600-foot high peak a few miles west of home and from there got spectaular views of the snowpacks and of Catalina. Basically it was an east-west panorama which spanned close to 150 miles. Our vantage point actually provided a spectacular 360-degree view that reached in to Mexico.
You can click the photos to see a larger version.
Here's Catalina Island as seen through my camera's telephoto lens. In the foreground is Carlsbad: remember, that's about 60 miles of ocean between Carlsbad and the island!
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2G2lF3maPq3yVsDHPkwX35vEVZCk1Jqklf5acWdM6AoolPRl8hCpnhpOSmMLRqBwm6sl0wiQVE96GMe3UQ94R6zfvu42gcodb0KJjEwnae5wf9tG2NNXi5kxwSk8DUwUTeyuL2mf3YzY/s400/Catalina.jpg)
Here are the San Bernardino Mountains, site of San Gorgonio Mountain, at 11,499 feet the highest peak in southern California.
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This is San Jacinto Peak, 10,833 feet tall.