A Fleeting Spring in Yosemite: When Going Out Was Really Going In

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” John Muir

Has that kind of thing ever happened to you? We headed east yesterday afternoon on a short jaunt, ostensibly to check out the progress at the Osprey nest on Lake Road, but when we got there, we decided to go a bit farther to look in on Don Pedro Reservoir, and once we were there, we realized it was just a bit farther to Greeley Hill where there was a backwoods route I've been curious about, and somehow at 5:30 PM we rolled into Yosemite Valley, much to our surprise.

It was probably inevitable though. Mrs. Geotripper hadn't seen the Dogwoods yet this season, so I knew I wanted to get up that way sometime soon. There seemed to be even more of them yesterday than just a week ago. The Dogwoods are inconspicuous understory trees so much of the time, but during a few weeks in the spring, they dominate the scenery.

I also realized that in my last post I had not included a lot of the "regular" sights of Yosemite Valley. Like Half Dome, or Yosemite Falls. What could be a better excuse to go again than the need to get a couple more pictures?

This shot of North Dome highlights how many more Dogwood blossoms there are this week. Compare it to the same shot from last Saturday.

Half Dome always looms over the Yosemite. It's over 4,000 feet above the valley floor, and yet is nearly a mile shorter than the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada crest farther to the east. Yosemite National Park encompasses many life zones and habitats!

In the deepening shadows at the upper end of Yosemite alley, Half Dome was the only major rock still illuminated by sunlight. At this time of year, the lower valley acts like a gunsight as the sun sets, focusing the light onto the iconic rock face.

Despite the drought, there is still some water in Yosemite Falls, but it isn't going to last. We could feel the dryness of the valley floor, a feeling that shouldn't be happening until June or July. It's going to be a tough summer.

But on this day, it was just beautiful. By the time we arrived, most people had retreated to their camps, hotel rooms, and restaurants. We had all of the trails and pullouts to ourselves. We only had a few short minutes in the valley, but it seemed well worth the effort.

This is kind of a special week for Yosemite. It celebrated its 150th year as a park in 2014, and celebrates the 125th year as a national park this year. It's Earth Week, and park admission is free today and tomorrow. Special events will be held all week.

Two Serene Hours in a Very Noisy Place: The North Valley Trail in Yosemite Valley

Yosemite Valley is an awe-inducing place, a place that was the inspiration for my current series on "What are the Most Incredible Places You've ever Stood"? I've been there many times and I never get tired of it. It is a destination for three of my field trips every year. It is an easy thing to drag a bunch of students up there (you make it required and stuff them on a bus), but how does one get past the sheer elegance of the scenery and explain to students the grandeur of the geological story of Yosemite as well? Part of it is letting them find out for themselves.

It's a bit of a trick to take 40 students to Yosemite on a busy Saturday in May. Buses are allowed to park in only two or three spots in the valley, and an extended discussion of geology is not possible in a place like the Wawona Tunnel View (above and below). It's simply too crowded with noisy buses and motorcycles and hundreds of tourists enjoying a first view of the valley, and it's really not fair to have a bus parked there hogging a premium spot. So we park the bus at Yosemite Lodge, and I set them free to wander through the park...to an extent. We make appointments. They find their way through the valley floor on the free trams, and we meet each other at a few of the most important localities (principally the Happy Isles rockfall site and a vantage point where we can talk about Half Dome and Yosemite Falls). It works well most of the time because they get a sense of exploration to go with the "learning".

I like the schedule for a different reason. The students have about two hours to find the visitor center and make a series of observations while making their way through the tram system to the other end of the valley. That's two hours that I can use to make some observations of my own, along with a bit of exploration. The trams are great, but nothing can compare with walking the length of Yosemite Valley on one of the less busy valley trails. Two hours of brisk walking for me equates to about six miles. I headed up the trail to Lower Yosemite Falls, trying to make my way through hordes of tourists (and a fair number of my students headed the same direction). It was crowded and noisy, but only a few hundred yards further I had the trail largely to myself.

 The North Valley Trail follows the base of the cliffs above the roads and valley developments. It is surprisingly quiet; I couldn't hear the traffic far below, only the breeze through the conifers and pleasant song of a bird I couldn't see or identify.

I soon passed a superb example of a talus slope at the base of Yosemite Point. In many places the cliffs of Yosemite are bold and vertical, but in other places there are recessed coves with extensive slopes of fallen rocks. The difference lies in the pattern of jointing in the rock. Granitic rocks form deep in the crust miles below the surface under great pressure. As they are exposed by erosion, the rocks expand and fracture. The composition of the rock seems to determine the spacing of the joints, and when they are far apart, bold cliffs occur. When they are closely spaced, rock falls are common and talus slopes are the result.

The trail climbs several hundred feet above the valley floor, offering views in both directions. Across the valley stands Sentinel Rock, one of the most imposing cliffs in Yosemite (although it sometimes gets lost in the scenery, being located across the valley from Yosemite Falls). On the other side are the cliffs of the Three Brothers. The cliffs that make the three brothers are more easily seen from the other side, but from my vantage point I could see the scar of the 1987 Three Brothers rockslide, which dumped something like 600,000 cubic yards of debris onto the valley floor. Luckily no one was hurt, since the park service had some warning that a big slide was imminent and closed the road at the base of the cliff. It was the largest mass wasting event in the recorded history of the valley.

John Muir and other earlier visitors remarked on the open park-like aspect of the woodlands on the valley floor. Fire suppression since the establishment of the park in 1890 has allowed the growth of a thick forest across most of the valley, but below the Royal Arches and Washington Column there are some beautiful old oaks that recall the original state of the valley at the time it was discovered by Europeans (the Miwoks and other first nation people have known of the valley for thousands of years).

Half Dome soon became visible as I worked my way towards Mirror Lake.

 The Dogwoods were still blooming along the side of the trail.

After three or four miles of walking I arrived at Mirror Lake. The "lake" is more of a wide spot in Tenaya Creek that developed as a result of a gigantic landslide in prehistoric time. The creek formed a series of ponds behind the rockslide that in springtime reflect the surrounding cliffs, especially Mt. Watkins and Half Dome. By summer Tenaya Creek often runs dry (especially this year with the drought conditions). On Saturday it was beautiful, but also crowded. I set off towards Happy Isles and soon left the crowds behind.

Half Dome from the vantage point of Mirror Lake is the very definition of "looming". It is nearly 4,000 feet of steep cliffs. Another major mass wasting event took place near here in 2009, the Ahwiyah Point rockfall. It involved something like 115,000 tons of granitic rock. Luckily it happened early in the morning and no one was hurt.

The small details are easy to miss in a crush of people. I enjoyed some more Dogwood flowers...

...and the hard work of huge bumblebee in the Lupine blooms.

After I met with the students at Happy Isles, we started making our way back to Yosemite Lodge. I took one look at the packed tram, and decided it would be nicer to walk back. The direct route was two or three miles, and I had a fair chance of beating the tram (the dozen or so stops and the heavy traffic made for a slow motorized journey). Along the way I was thrilled to see a White-headed Woodpecker for the first time.

Our final stop was in a meadow at the base of Yosemite Falls. It provided an outstanding view of Half Dome where we could discuss the origin of the iconic feature. Soon after we were back on the bus and headed home. It was a spectacular day!

The Dogwoods are Blooming in Yosemite Valley! And North Dome, the Stuff of Legend

The Pacific Dogwood (Cornus nuttalli) is a diminutive 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 year except for two times: fall, when the tree becomes one of the most vivid contributors to the autumn colors of the valley, and spring, when the Dogwood flowers bloom. The flowers aren't all that showy actually. 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. Just the same, they add a bright splash of white to the forest understory in the spring. I was in Yosemite Valley just a week ago and I would swear there were no Dogwood blooms at the time, but there were many of them yesterday.

Of course this is mostly a geology blog, so I couldn't help but notice that I was using North Dome as a backdrop to the blooming trees. North Dome is one of the less heralded sights in Yosemite Valley, a place with so many gigantic cliffs and waterfalls, that otherwise spectacular features get lost in the shuffle. It sits to the east of Yosemite Falls and across Tenaya Canyon from the much more famous Half Dome. It is a marvelous example of an exfoliation dome, which developed as the rock was exposed by erosion. The granitic rock, which formed miles deep in the crust, expanded as it reached the surface and the rock slabbed off, removing the corners and edges and forming the spherical outline (although from above it is a more linear ridge).

According the writings of Galen Clark, North Dome is tied in with Half Dome in the mythology of the Native Americans who inhabited the valley. It is called To-tau-kon-nu'-la, referring to the cranes that could be seen around the base. Half Dome, across the canyon is Tis-sa'-ack. According to one version of the story, the great chief Choo'-too-se-ka', whose name was later changed to To-tau-kon-nu'-la after he built is home on the dome, fell in love with the woman Tis-sa'-ack who had come out of the south to help teach the people to weave beautiful baskets. She did not return his love, saying she needed to return to her people, and she left in the night. The chief set out to search for her and never returned, leaving the people behind to suffer droughts, floods, rockslides, earthquakes and other calamities. One of the earthquakes caused Half Dome to split and half of it fell into the valley. Eventually the Great Spirit had mercy on the remaining people and returned the land to a bountiful state. An image of Choo'-too-se-ka/To-tau-kon-nu'-la appeared on North Dome, and Tis-sa'-ack is visible on Half Dome.

There is a second story about quarreling spouses that I don't like as much...

Of course those old myths don't reflect reality...like rockfalls, floods, and earthquakes. They never actually happen in Yosemite, right? Oh...

Half Dome and the Ahwiyah Point rock fall of 2009 (center)