Pastel Sunrise on Lake Mead and the Colorado River

Lake Mead silently awaits the morning, bathed in stillness under predawn alpenglow hues. 

This is very early on a summer morning I lensed this image of Lake Mead and the Black Mountains of southeastern Nevada. I was exploring the Colorado River from Lake Mojave north when I came upon this scene.

This is an excellent example of the natural alpenglow effect: Alpenglow (from German: Alpenglühen, Italian: Enrosadira) is an optical phenomenon that appears as a horizontal reddish glow near the horizonopposite of the Sun when the solar disk is just below the horizon. 

This effect is easily visible when mountains are illuminated, but can also be seen when clouds are lit through backscatter.Since the Sun is below the horizon, there is no direct path for the sunlightto reach the mountain. Unlike sunrise or sunset, the light that causes alpenglow is reflected off airborne precipitation, ice crystals, or particulates in the lower atmosphere. 

These conditions differentiate between a normal sunrise or sunset and alpenglow.The term is generally confused to be any sunrise or sunset light reflected off the mountains or clouds, but true alpenglow is not direct sunlight and is only visible after sunset or before sunrise.

After sunset, if mountains are absent, the aerosols in the eastern part of the sky can be lit in the same way by the remaining scattered red light straddling the fringe of Earth's shadow (the terminator). This backscattered light projects a pinkish band opposite of the Sun.
(Research Source)

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This image and story are 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.  

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Yehaw!!