My weekend in Yosemite
As noted earlier, I had the good fortune to spend last week in Yosemite National Park, celebrating the wedding of my friends Jason and Lindsay, and in general poking around in one of the coolest places around. Below, a summary of the three-day trip:
Friday:
Lily and I flew to Modesto, California, and rented a car. It took about two hours to drive up to Evergreen Lodge, where we checked in and then headed out for a short hike in the Hetch Hetchy area. Hetch Hetchy was dubbed "Yosemite's sister valley" by John Muir in an attempt to keep it from being dammed. But the city of San Francisco had been destroyed in 1906 by earthquake-induced fire, and the call for a reliable water source was an important force in overpowering Muir's conservationist ideals. Ken Burns apparently explores this saga, the first instance of "development vs. conservation," in the second episode of his new National Parks series. (I saw the first episode, but haven't caught up on the rest of it yet.) The valley was dammed in the 1920's, creating the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir:
Here's the O'Shaughnessy Dam, named after the chief engineer of the project:
I didn't find it as spectacular as Yosemite, but it was sure a pretty place. Walking along the north side of the reservoir, I reaquanited myself with some fine Sierran granites and granodiorites. Here's a sweet little xenolith (or maybe an MME; how can you tell an MME from a mafic xenolith?):
Back to the Evergreen for the rehearsal dinner (Oktoberfest theme!) and then bed.
Saturday:
Up early, got some coffee, drove an hour to reach the Yosemite Valley. I liked how quiet things were compared to the throbbing pulse of summer. This view of El Capitan, for instance, is typically mobbed with tourists. This day, we had it to ourselves for five minutes or so, then shared it with one other car:
Time to stretch the legs! We decided to hike up to Vernal Falls. On our way up, the base of the falls was still in shadow, with low-angle morning sunlight dramatically illuminating the upper reaches of the falls:
Looking back down the valley we had climbed up... I like the dark shadow of the cliff merging with the dark shadows of the trees below:
But if we set the camera's F-stop a bit differently, we can see what's going on in all that shadow. There's the trail we climbed up, with fellow hikers for scale:
Up top, photographing the waterfall:
On our way back down, with more of the falls illuminated as the sun rises in the sky:
Looking north across the valley from where we parked our car, marvelling at the huge exfoliation joints there: rounding these exposed plutons into granite 'domes.'
... or Half Domes, as the case may be:
A view from further out, again with Half Dome the most striking landform:
Then, we headed back to clean up before the wedding. Great ceremony, amazing meal. Drinks, dancing, rhubarb jam, bluegrass, reminiscing with old friends and new. Ahhh.
Sunday:
Breakfast and coffee with the wedding party, then off to check out some big trees. We drove to the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias. It started snowing on the way there, but we didn't let that deter us. On the hike down from the parking area (where, by the way, they had closed the Tioga Road), we found this nice example of spheroidal weathering in an outcrop of granite:
But the real attraction was the enormous sequoia trees. Here's one:
And a dead one, with a car-sized hole cut through it:
I found these trees very impressive: they were just stunning in their grandeur and immense age. Snow continued to fall as we left. We had to get going to make our flight home. Somewhere on the way down the mountain, Garry Hayes and his wife passed us going up the mountain. Ships passing in the night -- sorry I missed you, Garry! We made a couple of roadside outcrop stops, then got back to Modesto and traded in the car for an airplane. Our "redeye" route back to DC took us through San Francisco and Los Angeles, and I ran into Thomas Friedman in the airport. Got back to BWI at 6am, and headed off to work...
Friday:
Lily and I flew to Modesto, California, and rented a car. It took about two hours to drive up to Evergreen Lodge, where we checked in and then headed out for a short hike in the Hetch Hetchy area. Hetch Hetchy was dubbed "Yosemite's sister valley" by John Muir in an attempt to keep it from being dammed. But the city of San Francisco had been destroyed in 1906 by earthquake-induced fire, and the call for a reliable water source was an important force in overpowering Muir's conservationist ideals. Ken Burns apparently explores this saga, the first instance of "development vs. conservation," in the second episode of his new National Parks series. (I saw the first episode, but haven't caught up on the rest of it yet.) The valley was dammed in the 1920's, creating the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir:
Here's the O'Shaughnessy Dam, named after the chief engineer of the project:
I didn't find it as spectacular as Yosemite, but it was sure a pretty place. Walking along the north side of the reservoir, I reaquanited myself with some fine Sierran granites and granodiorites. Here's a sweet little xenolith (or maybe an MME; how can you tell an MME from a mafic xenolith?):
Back to the Evergreen for the rehearsal dinner (Oktoberfest theme!) and then bed.
Saturday:
Up early, got some coffee, drove an hour to reach the Yosemite Valley. I liked how quiet things were compared to the throbbing pulse of summer. This view of El Capitan, for instance, is typically mobbed with tourists. This day, we had it to ourselves for five minutes or so, then shared it with one other car:
Time to stretch the legs! We decided to hike up to Vernal Falls. On our way up, the base of the falls was still in shadow, with low-angle morning sunlight dramatically illuminating the upper reaches of the falls:
Looking back down the valley we had climbed up... I like the dark shadow of the cliff merging with the dark shadows of the trees below:
But if we set the camera's F-stop a bit differently, we can see what's going on in all that shadow. There's the trail we climbed up, with fellow hikers for scale:
Up top, photographing the waterfall:
On our way back down, with more of the falls illuminated as the sun rises in the sky:
Looking north across the valley from where we parked our car, marvelling at the huge exfoliation joints there: rounding these exposed plutons into granite 'domes.'
... or Half Domes, as the case may be:
A view from further out, again with Half Dome the most striking landform:
Then, we headed back to clean up before the wedding. Great ceremony, amazing meal. Drinks, dancing, rhubarb jam, bluegrass, reminiscing with old friends and new. Ahhh.
Sunday:
Breakfast and coffee with the wedding party, then off to check out some big trees. We drove to the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias. It started snowing on the way there, but we didn't let that deter us. On the hike down from the parking area (where, by the way, they had closed the Tioga Road), we found this nice example of spheroidal weathering in an outcrop of granite:
But the real attraction was the enormous sequoia trees. Here's one:
And a dead one, with a car-sized hole cut through it:
I found these trees very impressive: they were just stunning in their grandeur and immense age. Snow continued to fall as we left. We had to get going to make our flight home. Somewhere on the way down the mountain, Garry Hayes and his wife passed us going up the mountain. Ships passing in the night -- sorry I missed you, Garry! We made a couple of roadside outcrop stops, then got back to Modesto and traded in the car for an airplane. Our "redeye" route back to DC took us through San Francisco and Los Angeles, and I ran into Thomas Friedman in the airport. Got back to BWI at 6am, and headed off to work...
Labels: california, glacial landforms, national parks, plants, travel, tv, water resources, xenoliths
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