owens valley ...

owens valley, california -- Owens Valley ("place of flowing water") is an arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States as seen during sundown while immersed in thick smoke from the wildfires to the west. It is located to the east of the Sierra Nevada, west of the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains, and north of the Mojave Desert. It sits on the west edge of the Great Basin. The mountain peaks on either side (including Mount Whitney) reach above 14,000 feet in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is about 4,000 feet, making the valley 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. The valley provides water to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the source of one-third of the water for Los Angeles, and is infamous as the scene of one of the fiercest and longest-running episodes of the California Water Wars.

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