Pareidolia and Fall Foliage Art from the Sierra Nevada

Pareidolia is a trick of our minds that can cause us to interpret random images or patterns of light and shadow as faces. We were in the Sierra Nevada the other day ahead of Sunday's storm, looking for some fall colors around the meadows along the Clark Fork of the Stanislaus River near Sonora Pass.

I was mostly looking upwards towards the trees, but eventually my attention was deflected downward at the many aspen leaves that had already fallen to the forest floor. The bright yellow color of the leaves was giving way to brown, but the pattern was different on every leaf. The first one above immediately made me think of a face, or even a jack-o'-lantern (thus making a connection to tonight's candy obsession).

Conditions are changing rapidly up in the high country. We've been able to travel to the highest elevations all summer, but the latest storms have begun to drop snow over the passes. Sonora and Tioga closed Saturday in anticipation of the big storm on Sunday. They might reopen if conditions stay dry in coming weeks, but the writing is on the wall (and on the leaves): winter is coming.

The leaves were almost gone from the aspen trees up on Clark Fork. I hope the omens are good for a big snow year. We need a break from the horrific and continuing drought here in California and the Southwest.

The Other California: Clark Fork of the Stanislaus, a quiet version of Yosemite

It's not really fair, of course. No place is like Yosemite, and I shouldn't compare Clark Fork to Yosemite. I doubt there is anywhere in the world that can compare to Yosemite Valley with the high waterfalls, sheer cliffs and strangely shaped domes. But there are some things that are not so nice about Yosemite. It's been used and abused for the last century and a half, and today something like four million people crowd into the few square miles of valley floor. It can be noisy, smoky, and crowded. It's possible to find lonely places on the valley floor where nature still dominates, but it's not easy.

Clark Fork on the Stanislaus River is a world apart from Yosemite Valley. Like Yosemite, it was carved by river erosion, followed by glacial scouring, although not to the same depths. There are small waterfalls and cascades, but nothing like the stunning leaps of Yosemite Falls or the others.

What is there is in Clark Fork is peaceful and uncrowded serenity. A single paved road diverges from Highway 108 and follows the valley for nine miles, passing just a few organizational camps and three campgrounds. No resorts, no stores, and no crowds. We were there on Memorial Day weekend, and there were still campsites available on Saturday evening. The road ends at beautiful Iceberg Meadow, which at this time of year was filled with Water Plantain Buttercups (to the best of my guessing)

Brooding over the meadow is the unique granitic monolith called simply The Iceberg. It's 8,350 feet high. From the perspective of the meadow it looks like a prominent peak, but a look at the topographic shows it to be the last knob of a long divide between Disaster Creek and Clark Fork. Just two miles away, Disaster Peak rises 1,600 feet higher.

The peak is composed of the granodiorite of Topaz Lake, which at about 84 million years is one of the youngest granitic intrusions in the Sierra Nevada batholith (granodiorite is similar in appearance to granite, but contains more plagioclase feldspar and mafic minerals that makes it slightly darker in color). The rock is broken up into joints that are caused by pressure release when the rock is exposed by erosion. This explains the general lack in Clark Fork of bold cliffs like El Capitan or Half Dome, which are relatively less affected by jointing. The rocks of peaks like the Iceberg are more readily eroded by glaciers, which can pluck out the jointed blocks or rock.

Photo by Mrs. Geotripper

Very much unlike Yosemite, there is an abundance of volcanic rocks on the higher ridges above the valley. They are visible from various points along the road and can be accessed by trails that lead up Clark Fork and side canyons like Arnot and Disaster Creeks. Similar volcanics are found along Highway 108 near the summit of Sonora Pass. As noted in the previous post, these rocks were erupted between 10 and 12 million years from a volcanic center along the Sierra crest, similar in appearance to the Mt. Lassen volcanic complex further to the north.

We didn't have a lot of time on our visit last Saturday, but we walked around Iceberg Meadow and saw not a single other person. Cattle are still allowed to graze in the region, but the meadow itself is fenced off to preserve it from damage (deer have no problems jumping the fences). Despite the drought, the meadow is a bright emerald green in places, though in some parts it looked bluish from the impending bloom of some irises or other swamp flowers. It's only May, and it should be still partly covered in snowbanks, but we'll take the short spring over none at all. I hope the drought breaks this year...

Photo by Mrs. Geotripper

Clark Fork is a wonderful part of the Sierra Nevada, one of those largely ignored corners of a beautiful mountain that would probably be a national park in any other setting. It is the kind of place that John Muir wrote about in the Mountains of California when he said “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”

Photo by Mrs. Geotripper

This is one of the irregular entries in my blog series called "The Other California" which existed long before any Toyota commercials with a similar slogan. It is an exploration those places in my fair state that don't always show up on the tourist postcards, but which have incredible geology and are scenic to boot.

Up Close and Personal with a Western Tanager

Seasoned birders won't be surprised at the excitement a rank amateur like myself feels the first time he or she sees an interesting bird up close. Western Tanagers (Piranga ludoviciana) are relatively common forest and woodland birds across the western United States and Mexico and I'm sure they are seen often by the experts.  I've only been seriously seeking out new species for the last five months, so I still get to experience the joy of seeing something new and different on a fairly regular basis as I add to the list of observed species.

I've known about Western Tanagers for a long time, but I've never been close enough with an adequate camera to actually get decent photographs of one, but that changed today. We were exploring the upper reaches of the Stanislaus River in the Sierra Nevada of California, and as I was driving down the Clark Fork Road at the end of the day, I saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye. I hit the brakes, hoping against hope that I wouldn't spook the brightly colored male.

He didn't spook. I snapped a few distant shots, and then backed up the car hoping to get closer (I know that sounds like an odd way to do it, but from only forty or so feet away, getting out of the car would have spooked it more, I think). He hung around, as if he was observing me (a large rival in his territory?).

The tanagers are a large and diverse group of passerine birds centered mostly in the American tropics, but the Western Tanager ranges farther north than any other species, as far southern Alaska. For being so brightly colored, they are not often seen, as they tend to hang out in the upper canopy of the forest. I felt privileged to spend a few minutes observing this one, from basically all angles. Was he sending me a message with this last shot?

Brightly colored birds often carry the seeds of their own destruction because their feathers may be in high demand for one reason or another. Looking at the tanager reminded me of the large number of species of Honeycreepers that once existed in the Hawaiian Islands. A few of them are still hanging in there (two out of the original 51 species), but most of the others are extinct or nearly so, in part because Hawaiian royalty centuries ago demanded robes made out of their brightly colored feathers (habitat loss, malaria, and competition with invasive species and predators were major factors as well). The tanagers, with their wide range across all the western states avoided such a fate, but they were for a time considered agricultural pests and were poisoned or shot. They are protected today, and their numbers have grown to where they are a "species of least concern".

It was a privilege to see one up close and personal today.

PS: Mrs. Geotripper took a short video of the same bird...