Wednesday Filler: Where Warm California Meets Winter California

At around 6,000 feet above sea level in the Sierra Nevadas, the thickening oak forests and chaparral give way to coniferous forests, which in some places include Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron Giganteum).

General's Highway, Sequoia National Park.

The transition is sudden, and even though each forest merges into the other rather gracefully, in some places one just needs to turn a corner and see a completely different world around it.  Some elements of each ecosystem do continue on into the neighboring one, but the dominant life in both transforms the surroundings in an almost magical way.