The Day of the Diminutive Dogwoods in Yosemite Valley

Yosemite National Park is a place of big things. Big rock walls, big mountains, big trees, and big valleys. But for a few weeks out of the year, a little tree makes a big splash. A splash of white in the spring when the snows have disappeared, and a splash of red, pink and yellow in autumn as the trees lose their leaves.

The Pacific Dogwood (Cornus nuttalli) is a small tree that forms some of the understory of Yosemite Valley's conifer forests. It seems practically invisible to park visitors (like me, anyway) most of the time. The flowers aren't all that showy. They are the small yellow sphere in the middle of the structure. But they are surrounded by large white bracts that look like flower petals. Bracts are actually highly modified leaves. I was in Yosemite Valley a few weeks ago and I would swear there were no Dogwood blooms at the time, but there were plenty of them Tuesday.

The range of the dogwood trees is mostly in the Pacific Northwest and the coastal islands of British Columbia. The Sierra Nevada is more or less the southern end of the range of the species, aside from a few isolated pockets in Southern California.

I don't find them together all that often, but sometimes the blooming period of the Western Redbud (Cornus nuttallii) can overlap with the Dogwood, and if I look long enough, I can find the shrubs adjacent to each other. This year it was really tough, as the two shrubs were outside the door of the buffet restaurant in Curry (Half Dome) Village.  It was a colorful combination.

Back to the rocks soon!

Finding Peace in the Nation's Most Crowded Park: A Walk Through Yosemite Valley

If you've read my previous couple of posts, you know I was in Yosemite Valley over the weekend. I was guiding my students on a field trip up the Merced River and into the park on Saturday, and I came back on Sunday seeking some better pictures of the recent rockfall at El Capitan.

We can't park a big bus just anywhere on the floor of Yosemite Valley, so I had to let my students loose to find their way to the upper end of the valley using the free trams. There was enough time that I decided to walk the three or so miles from Yosemite Lodge to Happy Isles, picking whatever winding combination of roads, trails, or sandy river shoreline I could find (there's a direct route, but why stick to that?). I was almost immediately awarded with a nice view of Yosemite Falls, which at 2,425 feet is about the seventh highest waterfall in the world. To my surprise, there was a bit of water flowing, kind of unusual this late in the fall.

The fall colors may not match the technicolor splendor that happens in the hardwood forests of the eastern U.S., but then those forests don't have the backdrop of vertical granite walls that Yosemite has. I was reveling in the splash of color here and there. I often think that fall is my favorite time of year here.

I made my way across the meadow trail to Sentinel Bridge. The cliffs of Glacier Point loomed high above. I didn't realize that I'd be up there looking down the very next day (that will be another post).

Half Dome seems to loom over every meadow view in the valley. It rises 4,800 feet above the valley floor. Although glacial ice filled the valley to the rim, Half Dome stood above the frozen rivers. It was shaped by exfoliation sheeting (corners and edges snapping off), as well as a bit of undercutting from the glaciers below. As you will see in a near future post, Half Dome would better be called Four-fifths Dome, but that doesn't flow so well. Actually I prefer the Native American name of Tis-sa-ack ("Crying Girl").

Because people tend to stare at Yosemite Falls when they are flowing, they find it easy to miss the prominent cliff of Yosemite Point and the Castle Cliffs (below).

I crossed the Merced River at Sentinel Bridge, and got a colorful version of the iconic view of Tis-sa-ack reflected in the still water.

It's the funniest thing...the seven square miles of the floor of Yosemite Valley may very well be the most crowded real estate in the national park system. The park doesn't get the highest number of visitors in the system, but it does get five million, and something like 90% of them spend their visit in the valley. And yet, despite the crowds on the day I was there, the moment I got off the road, I invariably found myself alone. Finding peace in the middle of tourist chaos is a precious gift, and I soaked it in.

Approaching the footbridge near the empty Curry Housekeeping Camp, I had a fine view towards Yosemite Point and the Castle Cliffs reflected on the Merced River.

I quickly walked through the gaggle of people at the stores in Curry Village (I'm not a purist; I stopped for a Gatorade at the store). I headed up the trail to Happy Isles. I started to find more and more Dogwood trees turning shades of pink and yellow. I made it to the Nature Center and met with my students to talk about geology, and then we made our way back to Yosemite Lodge.

While I was talking to the students one last time, I happened to turn and saw the Moon rising along the cliffs off to the southeast. I snapped some zoomed pictures, only to find later that I was aiming directly at Glacier Point. If you look closely, you can see the fencing and people gathered on the edge of the precipice. I was pleased with the effect.

We got on the bus and headed home, and despite the hubbub of running around with students all day, it was one of the most serene experiences I've had in a while. And best of all, I would be up there again the next day!

What a Difference a Week Makes: Fall Report from the Sierra Nevada, Part II

No geology to speak of today, yet. Just color. Fall is a wonderful time in Yosemite National Park, and the colors happen so fast. I was in Yosemite only a week ago, and nothing remarkable was happening as far as fall colors were concerned. We made a quick trip on Friday, and driving from the Big Oak Flat Entrance to Crane Flat was a revelation.

Normally the drive up the hill to Crane Flat is an unremarkable drive through thick forest that serves as a prelude to an arrival in Yosemite Valley. This time, though, the Dogwood and oaks and wild roses were putting on the ultimate show of color.

The dogwoods are an understory species that sit unnoticed on the forest floor except in spring when the unique "flowers" bloom, and in fall when they provide much of the fall color in the deep forest. I somehow missed their bright red berries in years past.

We also came across these "berries" that looked to us like rose hips. Is this a wild rose? Inquiring minds want to know...

And yet, this color show that attracted all our attention was about to be eclipsed by what came next...that's in the next post, Act III of an extraordinary week!

Dogwoods and Domes: Wrapping a Week of Yosemite

I spent the week blogging about a day at Yosemite National Park, and as usual I've tried to concentrate on some of the sights that people might otherwise miss. Of course a place like Yosemite Valley is famous for some iconic features that everyone photographs and even though I've been there perhaps 70 times or more, I still cannot resist taking them too. So today includes a few of shots of the familiar.

First of course is Yosemite Falls, in full glory of spring. The falls were booming across the valley, and they were beautiful. They constitute one of the tallest waterfalls in the world (somewhere around 5th to 7th place by most measures) with a total drop of 2,425 feet. The falls are a fine example of a hanging valley, caused when the much larger Merced Glacier cut deeper than the smaller glacier of Yosemite Creek.

Yosemite Falls were once much less interesting. The tree-filled cleft to the left of the Upper Falls was the original channel of Yosemite Creek and there was a steep cascade rather than a sheer drop. Some glacial debris (a moraine) along the top of the cliff blocked the channel, forcing the river over the cliff at the present site.

The high approach to the valley from Big Oak Flat and Crane Flat includes some nice overlooks of the Merced River Valley and Bridalveil Fall along with the Cathedral Rocks and the Leaning Tower (the one sunlit cliff).

Half Dome is visible from many places in the valley, but one of my favorites is the middle of the Curry Village parking lot! The only difficulty is a lone telephone wire crossing the lot that keeps getting in the picture. The clouds were playing hide-and-seek with the summit of the dome.

One of the attractions of visiting Yosemite in the late spring is the blooming of the Dogwood Trees, and they were a pretty sight as we meandered along the valley floor. It's been a cool spring, so there's still time to catch some booming waterfalls and flowers if you get the chance!