The Simultaneous Seasons of California (and a peek at Half Dome)

It was a beautiful Christmas day here in the Central Valley, one of the prettiest I can recall. The storm that blew through yesterday was gone, and the winds were enough to prevent the fog from setting in. I took a walk along the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail in Waterford, and was gifted one of those rarest of things: a clear view of the beautiful Sierra Nevada. And of course it was the moment of three simultaneous seasons of California.

Yes, it's that time of year in California when three seasons occur at once. Sure, the calendar says it's winter and all, and that is certainly true in the high country of the Sierra, buried under feet of snow. But here in the valley, the last leaves are finally falling from the Valley Oak trees along the river, but with the rain has come the promise of spring as the grass sprouts and spreads a layer of green along the bluffs above the Tuolumne River.

The gift of enjoying the panorama of the Sierra Nevada Crest is rare in our valley. Although my little town sits at the very edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills, the mountain range is a tilted block of crust that slopes gently westward. As a consequence, the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada lie 40-50 miles away. The view of the peaks is generally obscured most of the time, for reasons both natural and artificial. In winter, an inversion layer develops that keeps a barrier of fog and mist that prevents any viewing of the mountains. In the summer and fall, dust and smog obscure the view. It is most often at the end of storms that the mountains are revealed in their full glory like they were today.

The Tuolumne River is one of the two main rivers that drain Yosemite National Park (the Merced River is the other. So the view from my trail encompasses much of the roughly 1,000 square miles of the park (for perspective, Yosemite Valley itself is only about 7 square miles). The view above includes most of the high peaks of the park, including the highest (Mt. Lyell). The diagram below, courtesy of CalTopo, provides the names of the peaks seen in the photo above.

Analysis courtesy of CalTopo

Amazingly enough, Half Dome, Sentinel Dome, and El Capitan in Yosemite Valley are also visible! It's true that you cannot see very much of these iconic rocks, but their summits peek out above the intervening ridges. One generally needs binoculars or a powerful zoom to spy them. 

Still not obvious? I've outlined the top of Half Dome below, with the ridge of El Capitan below and slightly right. There is a much better view to be had of Half Dome from about 5 miles south of the trail near the junction of Keyes Road and S. Hickman Road. It's been a bit of fun arguing over the years with people who are absolutely sure that Half Dome can't be seen from the valley for all kinds of logical reasons (the photos of course are photoshopped or whatever, which by the way is not a skill that I have).

In any case, the view was one of the best gifts of this beautiful day. I hope your Christmas and other celebrations were wonderful, and that you have a great new year! Thanks for reading!

A Rare Day for the Great Valley: The Sierra Crest, and a bit of Half Dome

California's Great Valley is many things: one of the most important agricultural regions in the world, America's Serengeti Plains where millions of migratory birds spend the winter, and one of the most polluted air basins in the country. The pollution is a shame, causing all manner of health problems for those who live here, and obscuring the incredible mountains that ring the valley. Except on a few select days out of the year. Today was one of those days.

Gray, Red and Merced Peaks in Yosemite National Park

We had a fairly intense storm last night, and it was followed up by windy cold conditions that cleared the air. I took my customary walk along the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail. A section of the trail follows the bluff and on days like this, I get a wonderful panorama of the Sierra Nevada covering Yosemite National Park. A zoomed-in look provides a view of Gray, Red and Merced Peaks in the southern part of Yosemite (above).

A shift to the north reveals the high peaks of the Sierra Crest, including Mt. Maclure, Rodgers Peak, and Mt. Lyell, three of the higher peaks in Yosemite National Park (Mt. Dana, the 2nd highest, isn't visible). Some of the foreground peaks are rather famous as well. Mt. Starr King and Sentinel Dome are visible, and at the very left edge of the photo is the top portion of Half Dome! It's hard to pick out, but the CalTopo provides some identification of the different peaks. 

Source: https://caltopo.com/view#ll=37.6344,-120.7662&e=15&t=n&z=9&c=0.31,85.35

There are better views of Half Dome from the valley floor (the intersection of Oakdale-Waterford Highway and Keyes Road is much clearer on days like this). I couldn't get any pictures today, but here's one from a different day (see some more at https://geotripper.blogspot.com/2019/02/it-was-that-kind-of-day-half-dome-from.html). 

A wonderful day.

I'm Occasionally Reminded I'm Near an Extraordinary Mountain Range: John Muir's Range of Light

It was one of those rare days of winter in the Great Valley of California. Recent rains have tamped down the dust, and gusty winds chased away the omnipresent haze. As a result, I was treated to a view of the mountain range that I live next to, but rarely see: the Sierra Nevada, John Muir's Range of Light. It is such a rare view that I have to realign my internal geography to recognize the peaks on the skyline. It's a special view, though. Almost all the high peaks lie within Yosemite National Park, one of my most treasured places.

I hike almost daily on the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail which climbs a short bluff to bypass the town's small water treatment plant. On clear days I am treated to a view towards the Sierra Nevada to the east, and a portion of the Diablo Range of the California Coast Ranges to the west. The most distant peaks, Mts. Lyell and Rogers Peak, are 80 miles away as the crow flies, so the initial peak identification is daunting. The distinctive shapes of the peaks are clearer at extreme zoom, so in the top picture I can identify Mt. Maclure on the far right, Mt. Simmons near the center, and below Simmons, almost invisible, the summit portion of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley! Cal Topo has a marvelous tool for identifying landmarks, as you can see below.

Source: Cal Topo

Mt. Clark and Gray Peak are the prominent peaks in the picture below. They are part of the Clark Range, a high spur that lies a number of miles west of the main Sierra Crest.

The next picture reveals the peaks south of Maclure. The three prominent triangular peaks (properly called glacial horns) from left to right are Mts. Maclure and Lyell, followed by Rogers Peak. Rogers is the only peak that is actually on the Sierra Crest, although Lyell is only a fifth of a mile away (the crest being defined as the ridge that separates west-flowing stream from those flowing east into the Owens Valley).

The last picture reveals Merced Peak (under the left side of the bird flock). It is part of the Clark Range. The Tuolumne River flows in the foreground.

The cabin fever resulting from pandemic isolation and winter conditions in the mountains is intense. I'm really looking forward to a chance to get back up into the mountains come spring and summer. But it is always nice to get a reminder that the mountains are there.
 

You Can See Yosemite Valley from the Tuolumne River! In a Manner of Speaking...

Those of you who know the layout of Yosemite National Park will also know that the title of today's post must come with some kind of caveat because any hiker or cartographer knows that the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park flows through a vast gorge the depth of the Grand Canyon (it's even called the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River). You just can't see the one valley from the other.

But...the Tuolumne River also flows across the flat plains of the Great Valley of California, and if we count "Yosemite Valley" as being also some of the significant peaks and cliffs that ring Yosemite Valley like Half Dome, El Capitan, and Sentinel Dome, you can in fact see the valley from the Tuolumne River.

This is not one of my occasional posts about the better-known spot for viewing Half Dome from Hall and Keyes Roads near Turlock. I get in enough internet trouble over that one, but it is indeed possible to see the very top of Half Dome and El Capitan from my daily walking trail along the Tuolumne River in Waterford. But the additional caveat is that it has to be a really clear day, and we have precious few of those over the course of year. Sometimes weeks can pass between sightings of any mountains at all. But following our huge storm this week, the air was crystal clear today.

The additional caveat is that you need binoculars or a good zoom lens to see the domes and cliffs. With the naked eye, the mountains are difficult to distinguish from one another. But on those rare clear days, and with the right equipment, and knowing where to look, you can indeed see some of Yosemite Valley's most famous landmarks. In a way of course it is frustrating. I'd rather be there than here, but chances will start increasing as the pandemic finally begins to subside.

If you are wondering about the cranes in the foreground, our 1964 vintage bridge is being replaced by a safer, wider bridge. The anchoring columns of the present bridge are unstable during floods; all bridges are perfectly safe, the engineers say, right up until they are not.

In any case, if you couldn't make out the various domes and cliffs and peaks in the opening picture, they are labeled below. 

If you live in the Central Valley (we call it the Great Valley) and wonder if you can see any particular Sierra peaks, check out caltopo.com and find the dropdown command for "simulated view". You can adjust the map for a view from anywhere covered by the program. Below is an example of the view I used to label the peaks shown in this post.

The Day I Found I Could See Half Dome and El Capitan From Near My House And Why it Was So Hard To Do So

Can you pick out Half Dome in the picture above? It's not easy...

Anyone who follows my other blog (Geotripper's California Birds) knows that I walk the Tuolumne Parkway Trail just about every time I have a free morning, watching for birds and getting exercise. Unfortunately, given the air quality of the Great Valley where I live, I cannot see the source of the Tuolumne River, even though the mountain crest is only 40 miles or so away. But once in awhile a storm blows through, and I am reminded again that I live next to one of the world's great mountain ranges. That happened this week as our first major storms of the season passed through, dropping more than three inches of rain locally, and several feet of snow on the very dry mountains above. The Tuolumne Parkway Trail climbs to the top of the bluff above the river to pass around the water treatment plant, and provides a nice view of the Sierra Nevada crest. I was impressed enough to snap some pictures. 

Later on, while looking at the pictures, I saw what looked like a familiar ridge-top. I consulted with Cal Topo, and by golly, I was right. I had captured a picture of Half Dome, and El Capitan right in front of it! It's not an obvious view, and you would need binoculars or a telescope to see it (or the zoom on my camera), but it's there. I had never noticed it before from this vantage point because both rocks get swallowed up in the rocky ridges behind (the peaks behind Half Dome are half a mile higher in elevation). The snow from two days earlier helped to highlight the summits of both Half Dome and El Capitan. The view of Half Dome from the valley floor is more obvious from other angles, even though the concept that it can be seen at all has been contentious at times...

Can you see it in the picture above? It's a challenge. Give it a shot and then consult the CalTopo wireframe below to see the identity of the peaks in the picture...

Zooming in and centering the two rocks makes them just a small bit more obvious, but it is still hard to see, given that we are only seeing the topmost parts of both Half Dome and El Capitan

Zooming in even more, the summit of Half Dome is even more obvious.

I've annotated the photo to help out a little...

They are from much closer and from a different angle, but the webcams in Yosemite Valley provide an idea on the snow pattern on Half Dome on the day I saw it from the Central Valley.

If you have a small bit of a wild place somewhere near where you live, visit as often as you can. You never know when a new discovery or surprise will be waiting. This week alone, I saw a beautiful Gray Fox in the wild corner of my campus, and a wildly out of place bird a few feet from where I took the pictures of Half Dome.

It Was That Kind of Day: Half Dome from the Central Valley

Update: I've added an extra image at the end that shows the satellite imagery in the view from Keyes Road. 

It doesn't happen often. I usually pass the right intersection once or maybe twice a week, but the most important factor is the air quality. It's almost always poor. Dust and smoke in the summer, fog and clouds in winter. There is a spot on the floor of the Great Valley (some call it merely the Central Valley) where one can see Half Dome and the other peaks around Yosemite Valley in the Sierra Nevada.

Today was one of those days. I was going to take my customary walk on the Tuolumne River, but I could see that the air was extraordinarily clear, so I headed south to the intersection of Keyes Road and S. Hickman Road. I wasn't disappointed. I could be wrong, but I think these are the clearest views I've ever caught with a camera.

The visibility of Half Dome from the valley floor has been kind of a contentious subject. There are plenty of people who think that it isn't possible, and there are some peaks that are mistaken for Half Dome off to the north. I was actually accused of photoshopping the pictures once, which if you know me is laughable (I don't do that kind of thing very well). The trick to seeing it is to know where to look (ENE from the Keyes/Hickman Road intersection), and to realize that while Half Dome is so prominent from the floor of Yosemite Valley, it is not even 9,000 feet above sea level. The peaks behind and around Half Dome are 12,000 to 13,000 feet high. Half Dome is most definitely not on the skyline. It's in the middle foreground.

The other thing to realize is that my pictures are highly zoomed images. The image below approximates what the scene looks like from just north of the intersection. Can you pick out Half Dome in the picture below? And if you know your Sierra Nevada geography, can you name the other peaks that are visible? See how you did below!

Here, courtesy of CalTopo.com is a guide to the peaks in the picture above.

POSTSCRIPT: Thank you for all the comments. Since there is still some controversy about whether this is Half Dome, it turns out that CalTopo also offers an image overlay on the viewfinder, so I have added it below. For those who feel the mountains in back are not "tall" enough, one needs to consider the curvature of the Earth over the 40-50 mile distance of the highest peaks in the view.

Yosemite's Half Dome Makes an Appearance...in the Central Valley

Once a week, my errands take me past the intersection of Keyes and Hickman Road on the floor of California's Central Valley. There is usually nothing much to be seen there in the late afternoon hour, just some fields of crops and almond orchards. Nothing much that is, except for the rare clear days in our usually smoggy and dusty valley. On those days, the Sierra Nevada can be seen off in the distance, and from a narrow angle, one can see the looming edifice of Half Dome, rising 4,000 feet above Yosemite Valley. Today was one of those days.

It's been a little controversial, because there are some who think it is not possible to see the dome, and indeed it is not easy to see unless you know just where to look. My pictures are at zooms ranging from 60x to 120x. The picture below provides an idea of the appearance with the naked eye. The dome itself is mostly to the left of center. One has to keep in mind that the rock is something like forty miles away, and there are even effects caused by the curvature of the earth that make it look odd.

The previous day had been clearer, but I just couldn't get away to try for the picture. I had to sharpen the contrast and play with the other settings to bring out the dome. Some are surprised that it doesn't form the skyline, but the peaks behind reach elevations of 12,000 feet or more. Half Dome isn't even 9,000 feet high. I only discovered the view because the first time it was visible to me, there were clouds obscuring the peaks behind, causing the dome to stand out as if it were on the skyline.

We'll see if the storms next week clear out some of the dust and smog...

Liveblogging the Deluge, April Edition: Seeing Half Dome Reminded Me of Something

It's easy to get distracted by life at times. After four months of well-above average rainfall and snowfall caused by a series of atmospheric river storms, we here in California were left in a rather precarious situation where our reservoirs were too full and experiencing damage, and where our rivers were swollen with snowmelt, straining the levees and threatening to flood valley towns. Then the storms stopped for awhile. Locally, we only had one series of storms worth noting in March, and only 1.85 inches of rain fell. That's above average for the month, but it's also the lowest monthly total since November. We climbed past the 20 inch mark for only the fifth time in the 28 years that I've been measuring rain in the backyard. If not another drop fell, this would be the fourth wettest year that I've measured since 1990 (another inch is expected this weekend). But we've now had a few weeks of dry conditions, and it can be easy to forget that there is still a situation...up there.

I was reminded of this as I drove south to teach a class this evening. I noticed it was unusually clear, and I realized it was a good day to photograph Half Dome from Oakdale Waterford Highway on the floor of the Great Valley. It's one of the better vantage points for spying the iconic dome, and it was nicely framed by the snow-covered high country. There is still a massive amount of snow up there, and I realized it was time to get an update on the deluge that California has been experiencing this year after half a decade of crippling drought.

Here's how things stand. The brief respite from the constant storms has allowed the dam operators to release some of their excess water, preparing for the coming snowmelt runoff. We've been lucky so far, avoiding any extended heat waves that could have caused serious problems. They've got some breathing space in reservoirs. And they'll need that space...

...because there is still a LOT of snow left in the high country of the Sierra Nevada. The April 1st snow report shows that the mountains are at 159% of normal for this time of year. The Tuolumne River drainage has enough snow to fill Don Pedro Reservoir once over. The operators know it, and the river downstream has not been allowed to drop below flood stage since January 4. It's running at 11,400 cubic feet per second, and will probably remain close to that level through the beginning of summer. I can barely imagine how the river channel will be changed when it emerges months from now.

We are not out of the woods yet. Floods are still a possibility, especially if we get hit by a heat wave. And we still have at least one more major storm coming this weekend. Stay dry out there!

Half Dome Makes a Surprise Appearance on the Floor of the Great Valley Today

It doesn't happen for me all that often, maybe because of air pollution, or the fact that I characteristically drive past the spot only once a week, but I can occasionally spot Half Dome in Yosemite Valley from the floor of the Great Valley (some people call it the Central Valley, but we know better). There's a narrow line of sight that passes through Denair and Turlock where the iconic dome can sometimes be spotted. One has to know where to look, and binoculars or a strong zoom are very helpful, but I always see it first with the naked eye.

It was a surprise today because we are right in the middle of the third major atmospheric river storm in a month's time, and the sky was overcast and raining for most of the day. There was a short break in the storm during the late afternoon, so I caught a few pictures on my way to teach my night class in Turlock. I had to play with the contrast a lot to bring out the image.

It was easier to see today because clouds obscured the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada crest that rise behind the dome. In the picture below, one can compare the appearance of the dome on less cloudy days (this shot is from February of last year).