The Sierra Nevada reflects in an irrigation pond in Owens Valley, the now-arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. Owens Valley lies to the east of the Sierra Nevada and west of the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains on the west edge of the Great Basin. The mountain peaks on either side (including Mount Whitney) reach above 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is about 4,000 feet (1,200 m), making the valley one of the deepest in the United States. The Sierra Nevada casts the valley in a rain shadow, which makes Owens Valley "the Land of Little Rain." The bed of Owens Lake, now a predominantly dry endorheic alkali flat, sits on the southern end of the valley.
Convict Lake has magical and mysterious appeal from the lake’s picturesque crystal clear waters, and is one of the most photographed and famous bodies of water in California’s Eastern Sierra. Unlike many drive-to lakes in the region, Convict Lake was created naturally. It sits snuggled in a box canyon, some 7,583 feet high in the Sierra Nevada. Just south of Mammoth Lakes and a measly couple miles from Scenic Highway 395, Convict Lake has long been popular with anglers and photographers; both pastimes being easily rewarded by the gorgeous alpine lake teeming with trout. In September of 1871, a group of convicts escaped from Carson City, Nevada, and were cornered by a local posse by the lake. A shootout took place and two members of the posse were killed, including Benton merchant Robert Morrison. The biggest peak above the lake, Mount Morrison, was named in his honor and the lake was renamed after the incident.
