A pet peeve..."doing it"

As I sat reading in the sunshine next to our trailer, the woman from the space next door walked over and started to chat.  We talked about what we had each seen in Yosemite and other camper chit chat, when she said "and we did Glacier last year and are planning to do Yellowstone this summer".  I asked her how long she was planning to be in Yosemite and she said three days.

Now it really gets under my skin when people talk about "doing Yellowstone" like it was the dishes or a sudoku puzzle.  One can see a lot in a few days or a week, but a park like Yellowstone or Yosemite can't be "done" in a weekend any more than Italy or the works of Shakespeare or the blues. We can immerse ourselves in these places and things and live them for a day or a year, but they are never "done".

And later that same day, I had a conversation with a man from Georgia who was camping nearby for a week.  We were chatting and I asked him what they did that day and he told me he and his wife had hiked up to Carlon Falls, a pretty little hike to an isolated waterfall nearby.  I told him we had driven up the Tioga road which had just been cleared of snow and opened for the season a few days before.  He said they had thought about driving up there but decided it wouldn't be worth it.  "Was there anything up there different than anything else around the park?" he asked.  I didn't know how to answer that question.  Not wanting to blurt the obvious "Of course it's different, it's a different place!", I was trying to formulate an answer about how Yosemite Valley is about 5% of the park and how the waterfalls that pour into the valley all drain from the hundreds of square miles of high mountains around it and how the 12,000-foot peaks are pretty different from the 4,000 foot valley and how the Tioga road climbs to the largest meadow in the entire Sierra Nevada range and past that to a 10,000-foot pass...but I just said, "Yeah, it's pretty nice up there, you should go there if you can the next time you visit Yosemite."

Yosemite Falls

When I was reviewing my pictures from our four-week stay in Yosemite, I kept seeing pictures of Yosemite Falls.  We hiked and biked all around the valley and the surrounding cliffs and trails, and from nearly every vantage point, there was Yosemite Falls.  Cascading from a height of 2,425 feet, it is the highest falls in the continental US, and I think it is the most beautiful I have ever seen. Changes in the light and the wind and the viewing angle all affect how the falls appear.  In a full moon from certain angles it is possible to photograph a "moonbow" which can barely be seen with the naked eye but can show as a huge double rainbow over the falls in a time exposure photograph--but that will have to wait for another trip :-(

I thought I would assemble my favorite shots of the falls from this trip and put them in one post, so here you go!

View from the south rim near Taft Point

Another view closer to Sentinal Dome

From the trail to the base of the falls

A different angle near the base

View from the trail to the top...really loud here!

View from a meadow in the valley

Having fun

More Yosemite pictures, here and there out and about (or as they say in Canada, "oot and aboot")

Hanging on the beach for lunch on the Merced River

Lynnae and Jeff on our hike up to Yosemite Falls

Biking the great paths in Yosemite Valley

Our campsite in Yosemite Valley

Yosemite is one of the world's most special places (updated)

I am not going to try to describe every hike we did or bike ride we took during the four weeks we stayed in Yosemite, but I want to publish some of my favorite pictures and share some of the random inspirations that struck me here.

There is a literal atmosphere of awe that permeates Yosemite.  You see it in peoples’ faces everywhere you go.  They walk around in a sort of a daze—I call it “Yosemite Derangement Syndrome”—that causes them to stop unexpectedly in the middle of a bike path and look around, or go through a stop sign with their head out the car window looking up, or take the same picture several times in one day (that one I suffered from a lot).

The truth is that this place is so incredibly beautiful, it defies description.  In every direction you look there are scenes of elegant composition and color.  I must have taken a picture of Yosemite Falls from 35 different angles, distances, elevations and locations.  I may have to post just a Yosemite Falls photo collection.  The waterfalls, the cliffs and rocks, the trees, the rivers and creeks, the wildlife—all combine to make this park the most beautiful place I have ever been.

I am convinced that Yosemite makes better photographers of nearly everyone.  The compositions just assemble themselves!  Average snapshooters can take stunning shots, so the better photographers have to up the ante and look for moments of exceptional lighting or clouds or fog.

Unfortunately, Yosemite is too beautiful for her own good.  The crowds of people who visit, the traffic even on an April weekend, the distracted drivers and the inevitable development required to support 4+ million visitors per year all put a heavy strain on the park.  Amazingly, one can always find solitude and quiet with just a little effort.  90% of people go to the famous sights and after a day of this, consider that they have “done” Yosemite.  With just a little effort and a short walk, it is easy to discover your own piece of Yosemite that is just as beautiful as any postcard picture and much more personal.

Small Yosemite

Sometimes the most beautiful things in nature are the little things.  These photos are the result of an early morning walk in Hodgdon Meadow, which was pretty badly affected by the Rim fire last year that burned over 400 square miles in and around Yosemite NP.

Jeff and Katie

Our oldest son, Jeff, and his girlfriend Katie joined us for a couple days of camping in Yosemite this week and we had a blast.  We hiked to the middle of Yosemite Falls and to Mirror Lake on Saturday; then on Sunday we took bikes around the park and even pulled Tucker in his own chariot!  Round that out with a couple nice dinners of fresh trout and shrimp tacos, evening campfires with roasted marshmallows and “bananas Gilbert”.   It was tough to see them go.

A new direction in photography

I mentioned last month that I have been working on understanding my Canon digital SLR better to improve my photography. I was able to take a class here at Yosemite’s Ansel Adams Gallery in a software program called “Lightroom”. I was blown away by what can be done to make the imperfect “eye” of the digital camera better reflect what the human eye sees and what the human soul feels. Ansel Adams said that you don’t TAKE a picture, you MAKE a picture, and Lightroom is a tool that can help do that. Here is an example of an original photograph my camera took:

Now here is the photograph that I made from that original image:

I hope that the photography in this blog keeps improving over the coming months and years!