Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Yosemite in March

Well, I guess I picked the wrong day to go to Yosemite National Park. A storm was off the coast after a week's worth of awesomely great weather. The morning was nice but, the clouds came in and made picture taking in the Valley kind of useless. So, I went straight to Plan Z and decided to pay a visit to the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias. I'd seen them before, years ago, when I was working on a fire salvage project adjacent to the park.
Below is an old dead Giant Sequoia that cars used to drive through in the old days. Its top broke out long ago but, as you can see, the rest of it is still quite impressive.


The sheer massiveness of these giants does take your breath away. They sure don't taper much as they reach for the sky, either. I just love that cinnamon-colored bark, too.


Here's that tunnel tree again, from the other side. Those two prongs stick up another 35 feet into the air but, I didn't see any of the rest of the tree on the ground. I'm guessing that it burned up in a fire at some point. That tunnel is about nine feet high, just to give you a frame of reference.


Earlier in the day, before the clouds came in, I tried stopping at my secret Merced River reflection spot, opposite the famous climbers Mecca of El Capitan. I couldn't seem to find many worthwhile shots before looking up and seeing this tiny little climber's bivouac hanging about a third of the way up. You're going to have to look closely to even see it! Right click on the picture, select "Open in a new window" and look at about 5 o'clock from the center of the picture. Why they were trying to climb this 3000 foot cliff in mid-March, I don't know. An old roommate of mine, years ago, got snowed off El Cap and had an epic tale to tell. Even zooming in as far as my powerful 10X zoom would go could not make that bivouac shelter any bigger. One of these days, I'll zoom in and crop out a new picture.


Finally, here's what the Merced River gave me as far as a reflection goes. With the warm temperatures, the river had a little more water in it than the previous times I was there. It's almost like a "natural abstract".


I go back to work on April 1st, and after a weeklong meeting in Reno, I'll be headed up to the Rogue River National Forest, along the southwest coast of Oregon, to inventory and measure trees for thinning projects planned. It's gonna be WET!!

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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Mix n Match scan batch

This picture kind of looks out of place in my blog. This is the Cinder Cone from near Butte Lake in the northeast part of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Even though there hasn't been an eruption here in the last 100 years, it's amazing that so little has grown back since then. Even Mt. St. Helens has grown back much more than this.

This next picture below is from the Minarets Wilderness, southeast of Yosemite National Park. Also, this is yet another example of my friend Euell's power in providing me perfect conditions for picture taking. This rugged wilderness is definitely one of my very favorite places to get away from the everyday world.


This aerial photo always takes my breath away. I went for a flight with a workmate back in '89 and we flew from Placerville, in California, to Yosemite and then back. Taking this picture through the cockpit window made it a little less than sharp but, I gave it a little sharpening after I scanned it. The northern part of Yosemite National Park is a rugged place, as you can see, and not many people make it out into all that glacier-polished nirvana.


This long exposure of Vidae Falls, in Crater Lake National Park, turned out pretty nice. There's still plenty more of the park for me to discover and photograph. Maybe I'll return there on my trip up to my Mom's in July, like I've done many times in the past.


Finally, I came up with another pic of Moraine Lake, in the Canadian Rockies. I sure didn't spend enough time there to properly "capture" everything I wanted to. During that trip, there was lots of rain and I managed to squeeze in quite a few pictures between storms. I wasn't so lucky a few days later in Glacier National Park, though.


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