Pine Valley Mountain ~ Straight Line Panoramic

This is a combination of 6 high resolution images stitched together to create a straight line panoramic image of the Pine Valley Mountains to the immediate west of Zion National Park in Utah.

This is a bit of an optical illusion in that these mountains are actually in the shape of a huge horseshoe and we are looking at the front side (east side) of the horseshoe.

Please open it full screen to get the full effect as this image is a full 25 miles wide!

The following is from this (Research Source)

The Pine Valley Mountains formed from the Pine Valley Laccolith, which is the largest laccolith in the United States and perhaps the largest laccolith in the world. The laccolith was formed during a 20 million-year period of volcanic activity. 

After 4-5,000 feet of volcanics had been deposited on top of the Claron Formation, the magma vents were effectively sealed off. A final surge of magma, unable to find its way to the surface, instead pushed sideways along the weak seam between the Claron and the overlying volcanic layers. 

Thus was injected a 3,000 foot-thick layer of monzonite porphyry to form the Pine Valley laccolith.[6] The contact between the top of the Claron and the bottom of the laccolith can be seen in several locations, most notably near the headwaters of Cottonwood Creek along the southwest corner of the mountain range, and at the headwaters of Leap Creek north of the Browse Guard Station.

After erosion exposed the laccolith, volcanic activity continued and the youngest flows are 1-1.6 million years old.[7] Many volcanic cinder cones can still be seen in the foothills of the Pine Valley Mountains and these have been dated at around 20,000 years old.

As a result of these lava flows, the valley for which the mountain range is named and in which the town of Pine Valley is situated, was formed when lava dammed off the Santa Clara River and formed a lake. Sediments eventually filled the lake until they reached the height of the lava dam. 

These sediments form the floor of the present day Pine Valley, Grass Valley, and Grassy Flat.[6]The mountains straddle the divide between the Great Basin watershed and the watershed of the Virgin River, a tributary of the Colorado River. 

The Chinamen's Canal tunnel at the north end of Grass Valley diverts the waters of Mill Canyon Creek from the Colorado River drainage system into the Great Basin drainage system, eventually finding its way into the Newcastle Reservoir via Pinto Creek. Zion National Park can be seen to the east from the mountains.
(Research Source)

I hope you enjoy this complex image, it took a lot of practice flying this scene again and again till I got it all photographed correctly. To be able to stitch them together you must have the images be captured in a similar fashion. That was difficult from a moving airplane I am piloting while filming! 

Love to have your help spreading the word as this is from my ongoing project in which I am trying to raise awareness of the 47% of the USA and 90% of Canada that remain unpopulated wilderness.  

Where Eagles Fly - The American Wilderness Expedition is my personal mission to introduce people to these amazing locations that surround us.  

If you like what you see here upvote then resteemit so that others may experience these wondrous places as well. And if you'd like these images to be part of your feed then follow me. 

Yehaw!!