I'm honored to have come in third for the contest! Such great entries, I thought all could have won.

I enjoy entering the contests, they distract from the usual doom and gloom.

I took my photo with just a point and shoot camera, like pretty much all the photos I've taken the last few years, until it went kaput.
I took it from across the street from the motel I was staying in Bridgeport, California. Has anybody seen that classic film noir Out Of The Past, with Robert Mitchum? That's where it was filmed, only about 75 years earlier. Bridgeport's original name was Big Meadow, hence the title for my entry.The elevation there is about 6500 feet above sea level, and the average height of the Sawtooth Ridge is around 9500 ft so that's pretty much a 3000 foot wall we're looking at. I know the ridge is the northern boundary for Yosemite, to give you an idea where this is located. I think the peak in the middle of the ridge is either the Matterhorn or Whorl Mountain, I couldnt find a matching photo on the web. It was cold! I was waiting for the sunset and was out there for about half an hour and my hands got numb. Plus the clouds got thicker and the sunset didn't really turn out, oh well. That night it went down to 24 degrees, in the morning had to scrape a hard thick layer of frost off my car. And it was still summer, about a week after Labor day! True fact: it gets cold in the mountains!
Here's a color shot of the same spot.

I hope to go there again soon, it is such a beautiful part of the country! (the Sierra Nevadas) I didn't have time to visit Mono Lake, which is close by...