Dawn on the ridge
The trailhead is about forty minutes from town and the climb to the first viewpoint takes a little under an hour, so a 5:30 sunrise means an alarm I would rather not talk about.
It is worth it. The ridges fall away to the east in layers, each a little paler than the one in front, and for a few minutes the valley fills with a warm haze before the sun burns it off.
I have tried to capture this with a camera many times and never quite managed. The dynamic range is too wide and the colours shift too fast. Sketching it afterwards, from memory and a couple of reference frames, gets closer to how it felt.
If you go: the upper parking lot fills early on weekends, the trail is steep but well marked, and there is a flat rock just past the second switchback that makes an excellent breakfast table.