Every once in awhile I find a subject that demands me to put it at the center of the composition. Such was the case with this gazebo in Washoe Valley. Don't ask me why it's there...I guess someone thought that exhausted hikers would need a nice spot to rest and appreciate the view after making the journey up to this point.

I think this might be the most time I've ever put into trying to get a single photograph. I hiked up to here (a mile in the snow) on three separate occasions to try and take photos for a panorama, due to the fact that every time something just didn't come out right. Then I spent a few hours stitching and correcting in Photoshop.

The title was strange, because I thought about how this thing looked like a crown on the valley, but I was going to name it something different...until, by coincidence, the day I was working on the text layer I was also listening for the first time to Jets to Brazil, a band I had just come across thanks to a friend. And a song came on called Crown of the Valley. The last four lines of the song tied it together for me:

"The empire's melting like ice cream
On the altar of the sun
This skin we've stretched for centuries
It's faded, it's fraying, it's meaningless to me."