Robert Wood painted California's Sierras as early as the 1930s, possibly even earlier. He first owned or rented a home or cabin in the Owens Valley town of Bishop about 1940. When he moved to Woodstock, New York to experience the changing seasons after World War II, he left Bishop, but he did not forget the area's attractions for a painter.

Wood painted in the Sierras with Robert Clunie, who may have backpacked and painted more sierra locations than any other artist. Clunie was very different from other plein-air painters. He worked directly from nature, but in a very meticulous style. Wood told one of his English friends that he once set up five easels with different views of the Sierras and finished all the paintings before Clunie had completed his first one.

When Wood returned to the Sierras he was in his seventies, and was no longer capable of hiking to remote locations to paint out-of-doors. Consequently, his subjects were usually close at hand, such as Mt. Tom, which he could view from his home, or broad views of the mountains that could be driven to.