Wandering Wednesday: Waters of Yosemite

 Our recent camping trip to Yosemite was full of surprises, mostly about how much water there was, all thanks to the epic amounts of snow this year. The last time we visited, there was a year's long drought and it showed in the river, waterfall and lake water levels all through the park. But there were other surprises too, like an entirely empty Lake Tenaya beach. That was mostly due to a short afternoon thunderstorm that we waited out.

Lake Tenaya's colors are so inspiring to me, the snow melt water is so clear and hardly anything grows in the lake to cloud the waters. This is one of the most special places to me in the entire world. We grew up here together, DH and I, swimming many times in the cold water after hiking or him going rock climbing. And then we brought our children here to run and splash and play. So many foundational memories were created here. It was amazing to have the entire thing all to ourselves for a very lucky hour. Unforgettable.

Higher up in Tuolumne Meadows, the Tuolumne River was still running strong.

Tioga Lake was beautiful, even when shaded by the cloud cover.

Upper Yosemite Falls was still roaring, which is unusual this late in the season. All that snow had to melt at some point.

Lower Yosemite Falls view, when you're this close, you can't see the upper falls.

We went to Bridalveil Falls at the exact wrong time of day, the sun was just coming over the top of the rock wall so the light obscured our camera view, but we saw it. with our own eyes at least. DH is in the foreground clambering over the rocks.

Chilnualna Falls was a short day hike we did up in Wawona on our last day. It was really beautiful and worth going up the very steep trial.

This is the south fork of the Merced river right next to our campground. Years ago we snagged a riverside campsite and it was lovely to fall asleep and wake up to the sound of the rushing river.

Wandering Wednesday: The Top of Pothole Dome

Finally, we wandered somewhere, back to our favorite place to camp, Yosemite. On one of the days we journeyed up to the high country to visit Tuolumne Meadows. There was a hike that I had always wanted to do, one of the smaller granite domes, Pothole Dome, as seen here from the trail. Years ago, the last time we went camping in Yosemite with our kids, they all climbed up the dome and I sat in the car. This was before I'd gotten my meds right, and I frequently ran out of any and all energy. I sat there and enjoyed watching my family scamper up, and enjoyed the nice mountain breeze from my seat in the car, but I was really sad that I couldn't participate. 

But this time, I had the oomph to try it. The giant meadow was very very wet for this late in September, which is good. Making up for all those dry years.

Once you get to the granite dome, the trail peters out and you're on your own getting up onto the rock. It's not hard, there are plenty of not too steep approaches to choose from. We followed one of the bigger fissures. Note, the sky is really really *that* blue. No adjustments or edits were made to these photos.

It seems kind of endless, you can't see the top for quite a while. I love those separate boulders that get left behind when all the glacial action is over and the ice has melted. 

Another fellow hiker offered to take our picture, how nice to get one that isn't an awkward couple selfie. 

Well, not too awkward I guess. The peak to the right of me is Cathedral, we did a several night backpacking trip up there and over Cloud's Rest to the top of Half Dome in the late 80's (ie very long ago!). I really could not make that trip now, so I'm super glad to have done it when I was able to. But this time, I was able to make it up to the top of this dome. It's all worthwhile to do, even just going up to Tuolumne there if you don't hike at all, just to see this with your own eyes is a tremendous privilege that I really treasure.

Rim Fire

We were just in Yosemite last week when the Rim Fire started really going. Here is a picture of Yosemite Valley taken from up on Glacier Point with the fire on the horizon.  At first it just looked like a big Sierra thunderhead. This picture was taken Thursday August 22nd at about 1pm. I believe that the fire is around 25 miles away from the spot I was taking the pictures.

But then you look closer and see that  it is actually a huge amount of smoke underneath that white cloud.  The smoke is actually causing its own mini-weather system to form.And the smoke wasn't just contained to one spot it really spread wide depending on the winds of course, but thankfully didn't affect us in Yosemite Valley, or up on Crane Flat campground on Highway 120 (which was closed right after the turnoff for the campground).

 There were some better places to take close up pictures of the smoke the next day when we went up the Tioga Road to Tuolumne Meadows but my husband didn't want to stop, he said it was too scary as we were too close to it. And since he was driving at the time, that was that. He was right of course, because he knows how fire freaks me out because of where we live. Let's just say we were so close that I would not have needed the zoom at all to get some of these pictures because where we were driving was right on the other side of those mountains that you see. Also it was a day later and the fire had doubled in size.

I really hope that the fire is able to be controlled enough where there are homes and towns, and that of course the firefighters stay as safe as possible. But I also hope they let the rest burn, this forest needs it, there's been too many years without a fire. Also the sequoias don't grow unless there is a fire, the seeds don't come out of the pods, there's too much shade from other faster-growing trees, etc. Fire is part of what is supposed to happen in these mountainous forests,

 On Friday as we drove back down to the valley to leave on 140, we stopped at a pullout near the turnout to Foresta and looked back up the mountain towards the fire.  The halo ring was new.

All I could keep thinking was this is Nature's Terrible Beauty, unstoppable (at least for a time) by humans, necessary and vital to the ecosystem, and so aesthetically beautiful in a abstract don't think about the trees burning and the animals running and the humans in danger kind of way.

Another Trip to Tuolumne

I'm just back from our yearly camping trip to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite. This time only two nights since I was late in getting reservations (oops, grrrr), but still lots of fun. Once we got over the shock of seeing gas being sold for $5.55 in El Portal. Geez! Price gouging anyone? That is a full dollar more than the next town down the road. This is the little town right on the outskirts of Yosemite, so they apparently can charge any damn price they want. All those motorhomes gotta fill up to make it up and down the mountain.
It is not every day that one gets to see a marmot! And not one but two, hanging out in their rocky nest near the Soda Springs/Parsons Memorial in the meadow. They're about the size of a housecat, only live at high elevation and wary but not skittish. They just kind of looked at us for a while as we took our pictures.
It made me remember one of my favorite John Muir quotes which mentions marmots:
" How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make -- leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone -- we all dwell in a house of one room -- the world with the firmament for its roof -- and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

Click on this picture to see the marmot on top of the rock a bit better. They really do have good camouflage don't they? The last time I saw one was at the summit of Mt. Whitney,(yes really I did that hike, way back when I was quite a hiker), as it was stealing my trail mix right out of my backpack sitting next to me. We've always been telling the boys stories about our encounters with marmots and I was so glad they finally got to see one up close and in person.
Ahhhh, I just love those High Sierra Meadow Colors!

Now back to doing camping laundry and dishes. Yes dishes, our tradition is to bring home our last day's worth of dirty dishes to wash up at home. That way, when they are put away until the next trip they'll actually be clean instead of just "camping clean".

Where do you want to be

Right now.
Where do you want to be?
Are you lucky to be there already?
Have you been previously?
Have you even thought about where you'd like to be? I mean physically, in real time, meatspace (an ooky yet accurate term!).
Why am I asking all these crazy questions?

I was flipping through some pictures on my phone, and figured out how to get them over to the computer (hooray for technology that is somewhat comprehensible). It practically takes tweezers to get the teeny tiny card out of my phone, and then put into the sd card reader. I'm so worried I'll break it, or put it in sideways and snap it in two. Something so delicate and small, can do so much.

Anyways, I encountered one of the first pictures I'd taken ,and it is of Tuolumne Meadows where we went camping this August. And I suddenly flashed on the memory of taking the photo and then some realizations came which I'll share with you.

I was sitting in the car waiting for my husband and two boys to finish scampering about on one of the granite domes. This is one of the shorter, easier ones, so they were actually scampering (not like rock climbing). While I waited, I figured out how to use some of my phone features, like taking a picture and playing some music. Our camera battery had run out the day before, and we hadn't worked out a way to recharge it quite yet. So phone cameras were our backup of for documenting that particular day.

Thinking about me taking this picture, and how it came about that I was in the car there, for like 45 minutes. Then it struck me like a 2x4 upside the head! I now realize I was in the middle of one of my very favorite places in the entire world. And I was ignoring it completely. I was shutting it out, almost pretending I wasn't there.

Oh, I had plenty of excuses of course, some of them more valid than others.I was tired, beyond tired and nearing exhaustion or collapse really. I was dirty and smelly from camping for a week in the summer. I was bored because I was by myself. I was getting impatient waiting for them to come back. I was feeling sorry for myself that I wasn't having fun running around on the dome. So instead of getting out of the car and flopping in the meadow or something completely simple like that, I was trying to tune out with technology. And my drug of choice wasn't available (hello computer), so the new-fangled phone was it. I couldn't believe it! To have wasted the precious time in this place with wonking out. Sad really! Wish I had realized that in the moment and chosen more wisely.
How's that for a true regret?

So now I wish I was back there.
In that moment.
In that place.
I would have done it differently.

Patterns on my Mind

Ooh, do I ever have patterns on my mind. Being out in nature, camping does that to me every time. I see patterns everywhere, and they get all my worn-out creative synapses snapping again And looky here it is the middle of August, and I haven't done anything for the Self Portrait Challenge which is all about patterns.

I took this photo of the rock dome at the Olmstead Point view turnout on the Tioga Road. The pattern on the rock just amazed me. I think I will make a screen or stamp out of it for printing purposes. Tioga Road or Highway 120 is closed during the winter months, it is at such a high altitude and gets so much snow they don't bother plowing it at all. So once you are finally up there driving around, you realize how crazy it was to even make the road in the first place! I'm glad it is there though, since I don't think I could make the backpacking trip that it would require to get from Yosemite Valley (4000ft elevation) up the Toulumne Meadow area (8400ft elevation!).

Then I combined it with a photo of me sitting on the shore of Lake Tenaya taken by my son, Zach. This is my absolute favorite lake in the whole world. The water is cold (of course, it is snow melt!), but so clear, and no yicky decomposing stuff on the bottom of the lake. I think not much lives in it compared to lower elevation lakes. The sandy beach is all granite sand which is different feeling than most beaches one goes to. Also there is a steady wind, coming up from Yosemite Valley, so there are continuous, small, very quick waves. Think of the ocean as a grown-ups' heartbeat compared to a babies' heartbeat.

I was really bummed that I forgot my swim suit, otherwise I would have gone in, cold or no cold.

I'm proud of myself that I figured out Photoshop Elements enough to do this! A little fiddling and concentration was all it took.

Where My Head Is

This is where my head is.
I haven't fully come back from vacation yet.
Not even close!
A week of camping in Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite will do that to a person.
I have hundreds of photos, but this is my favorite that I'll share with you right now.
This is Lembert Dome at sunset, with a deer in the foreground.