johnboystravelblog

These were all taken Wednesday afternoon using my smartphone camera.  I will be posting pictures taken with the digital camera later.

The “nose” of El Capitan faces south so pictures in the morning highlight the southeastern face of the formation.  These were taken in the afternoon, so the first two (taken around 2 o’clock) have both the southeast (right side of photo) and southwest (left side of photo) getting sunshine.

These next shots were taken around 230 pm so as the sun moves west across the sky the southeast exposure falls into shade.

Here is a three-shot panorama, top to bottom, of the southwest face which is now getting more direct sunlight:

And before leaving the Park for the day, here are the final two pictures, taken around 5 o’clock.

 

This post contains pictures taken Wednesday morning.  You may want to print a map of Yosemite Valley to follow along at home with the references I will be making in this post and the next one (Half Dome – Afternoon Pictures).  To print the map, Google “NPS Yosemite Map” then click on “Official Map for Yosemite Valley”.

But before I post Wednesday’s photos let me revisit the first picture I posted of Yosemite which I took from the Tunnel View vantage point.  This was taken Saturday afternoon around 230 but I want to use it to put distances in perspective.

In the photo above, Bridal Veil Fall (on the right) is only about 2 1/3 miles away as the crow flies.  El Capitan (on the left) is about 3 1/2 miles away and Half Dome (in the center) is a whopping 9 1/2 miles away – well beyond the Yosemite Valley.

I didn’t go deep enough into the Valley on Saturday to see Half Dome again.  On Monday, when I was riding the Shuttle Bus around the Valley, I learned that I could see Half Dome from the middle of the Sentinel Bridge, though I never returned there that day to get any pictures.  Well the next picture is from that bridge on Wednesday morning, around 1030.  The sun is still behind Half Dome so you can’t see it very well because of the fact I was shooting from sunlight into shadows, but at least it gives you a slightly closer look.  Half Dome is now about 4 miles away.  I will be posting pictures taken with the digital camera later.

These next two shots are taken from the area around Mirror Lake, which is the closest I ever got to Half Dome.  For me, Mirror Lake was a big disappointment.  On Monday I got off the bus at the Mirror Lake stop when the driver said it was an easy hike of about a mile with not much elevation change, which in my opinion was wrong and wrong.  It is actually about a mile and a quarter (and not being a hiker that added a half mile to the round trip) and it started off easy and relatively flat but became rocky and steeper, about 100 feet of elevation change and, again, for “not in very good shape” JohnBoy, now walking at 4,000 feet elevation, that was more than I was expecting.  Well, when I got up there I learned much to my dismay that I was on the wrong side of the damn lake to get the “mirror” effect of seeing Half Dome in the lake’s reflection!  There was no way to get to the other side other than to go way around (and I mean WAY around) on that trail, or go back down and walk back up on the other side.  I can’t believe they don’t tell you which way to go to see the reflection when you get off the bus.

This is a small lake I got to just before Mirror Lake.  Wednesday, having learned from my mistake on Monday, I walked up the PAVED ROAD on the west side of Tenaya Creek which ends with a short, level trail which put me on the correct side for seeing reflections.  Well, kinda sortof.

Here is a shot looking up at Half Dome from the little lake shown above (it had another name on the sign up there but I don’t remember what it was and can’t seem to find it online).  Mirror Lake itself is supposedly just beyond this one.  From the vantage point of the photo above Half Dome can now be seen by looking up and to the right.  It is still over a mile away and you are looking up (into the midday sun) from around 4,000 feet elevation near the lake toward the 8,836 foot peak.

Well, we (I had joined a group of fellow travelers for my walk up to the lake, and I told everyone getting off the bus to take the road, NOT the trail closest to the bus stop) started walking further back to see the reflection in the “real” Mirror Lake only to be told that the Park’s new credo is to let nature take it’s course and rather than maintaining the much touted Mirror Lake as a lake they are letting it drain and return to being a meadow through which Tenaya Creek will run, in effect, undammed.  So no reflection today for Mr. “I walked up here twice and I’m not doing it again” JohnBoy.

You’ll see more pictures of Half Dome, taken in the afternoon, in the next post.

 

 

These first two photos were taken Wednesday afternoon from Sentinel Bridge with the Merced River in the foreground, in the heart of the Yosemite Valley.  The sun had now moved far enough west in the sky to start illuminating the flat portion of Half Dome.  From the bridge Half Dome is about 4 miles due east.

These next 4 photos were taken from Glacier Point.  Getting there takes about an hour from the Valley floor and involves driving west then south on Route 41, the road I came in to the Park on initially last Saturday, then driving up another road to where it ends at the Point.  Glacier Point is at 7,214 feet elevation and you are now looking East/Northeast at Half Dome which tops out at 8,836 feet.  These 4 pictures were taken within about 6 minutes of each other, all with the smartphone camera, zoomed in a little bit more each shot. From this vantage point Half Dome is about 3 1/4 miles away as the crow flies.

And this last photo is from Washburn Point as I started driving back down Glacier Point Road, and really illustrates how Half Dome got it’s name.  You are now look Northeast at Half Dome which is about 3 2/3 miles away.

No photos (and hopefully none forthcoming).

Wildfires are starting to appear on the maps and I will be keeping a close eye on them. There is one right now in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, on the opposite side of Yosemite from where I am. There is also the Pawnee Fire up near Ukiah CA, where I have an Airbnb reservation in about two weeks (although right now it isn’t very close to town). It started only a few days ago and is already over 13,000 acres. It is being shown on the news and the Weather Channel because it has grown so quickly and has already destroyed numerous structures.

I see CalFire, Forest Service and Park Service fire trucks everywhere (not firetrucks like you would see in your home town but pickup or utility trucks owned by those agencies), and when I have been driving on the three scenic routes just north of where I am staying I often see Rangers at overlooks, from which you can see across wide areas, scanning the landscape with binoculars.

I will be closer to the coast after I leave here, except when I go to northeastern California to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park although, as the people who live near the coast near Montecito CA will tell you, that doesn’t guarantee you are immune from the fire danger.

And with the upcoming July 4 holiday looming there are signs everywhere advising that fireworks are not legal and should not be used EVER.

No photos (yet!)

I have LOTS more El Capitan and Half Dome pictures to share but my internet connection this week is very slow and it is taking forever to upload pictures to the blog (even in the wee hours of the morning local time).  I’m going back to bed as I have another very busy day today.  I will post the additional pictures Friday morning.

Here are two more photos of Bridal Veil Fall.  It is in the Cathedral Mountains and is the first attraction you get to when you enter the Park from the west.  It has a vertical drop of 620 feet.

Many of the attractions, and the two big hotels, at Yosemite National Park are located in the dead-end Yosemite Valley.  I didn’t venture into the Valley when I arrived in the area on Saturday because of signs warning of up to 3 hour delays driving in and out (it was the 3rd Saturday of June, after all, and I had already sat in line for an hour and a half just to get in the main entry gate).  In addition to the three popular attractions I have discussed earlier (El Capitan, Half Dome and Bridal Veil Fall) another big hit with tourists are these two Falls, located deep in the Valley.  Upper Yosemite Fall is at 5,404 feet elevation and has a vertical drop of 1,430 feet – the largest in the Park.  Lower Yosemite Fall (which you can see in the lower left hand corner of several of these photos) has a vertical drop of 320 feet.  There are what are called the Middle Cascades between them which drop 675 feet for a combined 2,425 foot drop.

Here are photos taken at various times on Monday and Wednesday:

These were taken Wednesday afternoon at around 145 when the sun was fully hitting the face of the mountain (Yosemite Point, 6,936 feet elevation).

 

There are lots of other things to see in Yosemite besides the 3 or 4 most popular sites.  Here are a variety of pictures taken at various times and places throughout the Park during the three days I have been there so far (and I plan to go back on Friday).  I’ve tried to pick the best of the 425 pictures I have taken with my smartphone camera.  We’ll deal with the 322 I’ve taken with the digital camera later!

The waterfalls seen in the next two photos are Nevada on the top (at 5,907 feet elevation with a 594 foot drop) and Vernal (at 5,044 feet elevation with a 317 foot drop) below it.  The other day I talked about mountain-climbing fatalities at El Capitan and Half Dome.  Well, these waterfalls are not without their victims as many people get swept to their death by getting too close or not taking proper precautions.

And yes, I am using the proper tense – unlike the White House in their erroneous press release concerning Iran’s nuclear program.

Sunday while on a scenic drive on Route 4, north of Sonora I stopped at Alpine Lake, a very nice spot where many folks were enjoying the day near, in and on the water.

Shortly after taking those photos, and more which I will post later, a bald eagle swooped over the lake from left to right, probably only 20 feet above the surface and maybe 40 yards ahead of me.  Here is a photo of the eagle in flight:

Well damn.   That didn’t exactly work out.   Getting a bird in flight, zoomed in and focused is very difficult, especially when you weren’t expecting it.

Well, the eagle flew up and landed at the top of a dead tree:

He or she (it’s hard to tell adult eagles apart) sat up there looking out over the lake.  When some folks I had been talking to alerted me that if I walked up the path next to lake I could get a closer look I changed positions:

Then I walked even further up the path to see if I could get photos looking at it from the front.  Well, just as I found the perfect spot the eagle flew away.  I waited a while to see if it would come back and then walked back down to where I had seen it originally.  Well, sure enough, it came swooping by again and although it headed for the same tree it turned left and headed for another tall, dead tree.  I scooted up the path but again, when I got to the perfect spot it flew away.  I waited 45 minutes (in a shaded spot where I could see both trees) but had to move on as I still had lots of territory to cover.

Here is what could have been.  Just picture the eagle sitting on both of these spots facing the camera:

Depending on how much I get done in the next two days I may well go back up to Alpine Lake and try again.  It really was a perfect spot on the path to watch both trees and at 2 o’clock in the afternoon I was on the shade and the sun was in a perfect spot for pictures.

I have been keeping an eye on tall, dead trees as I drive around but haven’t seen any more eagles.

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To see the bald eagle pictures I took last year near Yakima, Washington search “Eagle Redux” on the Home page or use the calendar there to go back to July 28, 2017.  For the eagle pictures from Arapahoe National Wildlife Refuge search for that name on the Home page or use the calendar to go back to August 17, 2017.

We don’t want AAA to have to perform another “extraction”.

Tuesday I took one of the scenic roads I had driven on Sunday north instead of south, and in the morning rather than in the afternoon, to get a different perspective.  At one point I saw a nice scene off to the left so I crossed the road to park on the shoulder and out of harm’s way so I wouldn’t have to walk across the highway.  For added safety I drove off the paved shoulder and onto the dirt (the paved areas are often “turnouts” where slow moving vehicles going uphill are required, by law, to pull into when more than 5 vehicles are behind them), then noticed the steep dropoff and the fact that there was no guardrail:

Here was the reward:

For those of you who may be new to the blog and don’t understand the “extraction” reference, search for “Delay of Game” on the Home page, or use the calendar there to go back to August 20, 2017 to read another amusing JohnBoy story.

Maybe my next contest should be to guess when the next time I need to be “extracted” will occur….  Also for you newcomers, don’t forget we currently have a contest going on with $20 to the winner and with a “double or nothing” option.  For details search “While you’re waiting” on the Home page, or use the calendar there to go back to May 29, 2018 to read the details.  You will have to use the “Contact” link on the Home page to send me your guess (see “Comments” on that post to see other people’s guesses).  When I reach the northern part of my coastal drive at the end of August I will start driving east along the Canadian border which opens up all kinds of snake, moose, mountain lion, grizzly bear and bobcat scenarios.

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Further north on Highway 88 Tuesday morning I came to this spot which I had seen on Sunday:

In the foreground is Silver Lake whose surface is at 7,300 feet elevation.  Towering behind it is Deadwood Peak which tops out at a rugged 9,846 feet.

Here is a view from down by the lake:

And here is what it looked like on Sunday, in the afternoon when the sun was behind me: