It's the earth's shadow.

Ya see those colors in the sky? That's the boundary between night and day in our atmosphere, also known as the Belt of Venus. It's something I never noticed until I moved to California and started spending time away from the city. It doesn't last long, but in the right conditions, these colors can be quite vibrant and defined around sunrise and sunset.

After I woke up in darkness on that frosty morning in the White Mountains of California, I drove up to a spot that offered a mostly unobstructed view of the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This vista is 9,000 feet above sea level, but the thin air didn't stop me from running up to the view point with a few cameras, trying to catch the earth's shadow before it disappeared for the day.

This photo is part of a series that will become digitally stitched into a high-resolution panorama. Stay tuned!

For anyone wondering, I did not alter the colors.