Photos: Best of the West

Two wind turbines jut from a sea of clouds atop Kodiak, Alaska's Pillar Mountain on Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 9, 2012. While Kodiak city is shrouded in fog that grounds airplane traffic, higher elevations are seeing crystal blue skies. National Weather Service forecaster Rich Courtney said the unusual conditions are being caused by the combination of a temperature inversion and an imperceptible easterly breeze that is stacking oceanic moisture against Kodiak Island's mountains. "With the inversion over the top, you almost have like a ceiling on a house," Courtney said. (AP Photo/Kodiak Daily Mirror, James Brooks)