Obsidian Dome

This camera sits in the middle third of the Conway Summit and Lee Vining sequence, frame 2 of 3 in driving order. Read it as one frame of a film: the frames behind you and ahead of you bracket it, and the change between them is the real information. A single frame tells you about a spot; the sequence tells you about the drive.

Conway Summit and Lee Vining runs bridgeport to the mammoth lakes turnoff. In the middle third the story is usually the committed middle of the drive, where the pattern set at the start either holds or breaks down; what you see here is what the next twenty minutes look like. When this frame disagrees with the first frame of the stretch, believe this one for the road around it and the sequence as a whole for the drive.

The still is refreshed by Caltrans on its own cadence at Caltrans's source and shows the road surface and the traffic on it, not the air above. At night the frame still reads lane occupancy and brake lights honestly, which is most of what this corridor asks of a camera. Pair this frame with the corridor verdict at the top of the page, which carries any posted restriction and any closure Caltrans is reporting for US-395.