"Tunnel View, Yosemite Valley"

Preserved on a Kodachrome Transparency, this image captures one of the most celebrated views in America — Tunnel View, the first glimpse of Yosemite Valley that greets visitors as they emerge from the Wawona Tunnel. El Capitan rises dramatically on the left, its sheer granite face dropping nearly 3,000 feet to the valley floor. Half Dome floats in the misty distance at the center. Cathedral Rocks frame the right. And below it all, a deep green forest stretches the length of the valley like a carpet laid out for something extraordinary.

The cool blue and purple tones of the Kodachrome film give this image a quality that feels less like a photograph and more like a dream — luminous, vast and completely still.

John Muir called Yosemite Valley the grandest of all the special temples of nature. Standing at Tunnel View for the first time — or the fiftieth — it is impossible to disagree. This is one of those places that makes you catch your breath before you even fully understand why.

This slide captures it exactly as it deserves to be seen.