Wednesday, February 25, 2009

An Extraordinary Picture (at least for us Central Valley denizens)

No, not mine (I wish...). This was taken by Tony Immoos following a discussion on the Yosemite Blog (here and here) about whether Half Dome in Yosemite could be seen from points in the Central Valley. Follow this link (please!) for an explanation of how and where he got this photograph. The picture also includes a portion of El Capitan, Sentinel Dome, and Clouds Rest.

Living in the Central Valley is an exercise in frustration sometimes. One knows that there are spectacular mountains out there, only a few miles away, but it is a rare day that we see them, and few (even among long-time residents) realize that some of the iconic cliffs and peaks of Yosemite Valley are actually visible from the floor of our valley. Far too often it is dust and smog that obscures the view.

4 comments:

kaweah said...

Wow.

Silver Fox said...

A very clear day - I remember when that was a standard thing (50s, 60s).

I also remember being able to see Shasta from a bridge on Highway 40 between Sacramento and San Francisco - although I'm not sure if that's a real memory. Were you there long enough ago to have any idea about that?

Garry Hayes said...

Only here since the late eighties; grew up in smoggy southern California, where the mountains were only 6 miles away, and there were days when we couldn't see them.

SciGuy315 said...

As track coach at Turlock High, my team was able to see this view as we ran east on the main Turlock Canal to Verduga Road. I then told all of my geosciences students where to go to see half-dome and nearly 40 of them have accomplished this task! Perhaps after this set of storms rolls through we'll be able to see it again!