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!
Here are the San Bernardino Mountains, site of San Gorgonio Mountain, at 11,499 feet the highest peak in southern California.
This is San Jacinto Peak, 10,833 feet tall.
