Going back in time a bit, here is a post I wrote as we arrived in Yosemite on June 7th.
Trading Armco and asphalt and granite and waterfalls, I’ve moved from the racetrack to Yosemite for the week. The late summer and recent snows mean that the waterfalls in the valley should be in full force. The rivers we’ve encountered as we drive along the Tioga Pass road, which opened two days ago, to our relief, are full and quick.
We stopped to take in the view from Olmstead Point, named for conservationist architect Fredrick Olmstead, Jr. A short hike above Tioga Road offers a lovely view of Clouds Rest and the back side of Half Dome in one direction, and of Tenaya Lake and Mount Conness in the other.
After shooting the sunset at Olmstead Point, we went to Mono Lake, two of us for the first time, to see what we could do with the Milky Way. To say that it was dark out there is not quite an understatement; with no moon and almost zero artificial light, we could still see a bit from the amazing amount of starlight. At altitude and away from man-made light pollution, the number of stars in the sky is astounding, something you never see in the city. There are so many stars, in fact, it is difficult to find familiar constellations; they get lost among the mass of tiny lights in the sky. In this environment you can also make out the gases of the Milky Way, though the camera see them much better. To the naked eye almost none of the color is apparent, only a kind of hazy cloud running like a ribbon through the night sky. Getting a good exposure is still a challenge for the modern DSLR but with some trial and error I think all three of us got something we liked. The fourth got a couple of hours of sleep while we were goofing off. (Edit: see Tyler’s here, and John’s here. One of mine was posted on this blog on June 14th.
We got back to the room a little before 1:30AM, and set our alarms for 3 hours later. At 4:30 we were up and 10 minutes later in the car driving back to Mono Lake to see what the odd and mysterious tufa formations looked like in the sunrise. The sky was glowing at 5AM as we were only 30 minutes away from sunrise. The long summer days are killers if you want to catch both sunrise and sunset AND some good stars.
Mono Lake is a sister to the Great Salt Lake and similar in several ways. It does not flow to the sea, and though fed by various sources of fresh water, the lake itself is saltier than the sea. The lake water has only evaporation as a means of escape, and any minerals contained in the water flowing in remain in the lake after the water molecules leave. Mono Lake is famous in California for how the Los Angeles water authority commandeered the lake’s fresh water inlets and diverted them south. The effect on the local eco-system was, as you can probably image, dramatic. Not only did the level of the lake drop significantly, but the local wildlife balance was upset as birds who nested and bred on the lake’s islands were now vulnerable to coyotes and other predators. The lake has been taken back by the local authorities who are trying to promote the lake rising to its former level again.
Eventually, if they are successful, the many tufa towers that became visible when the level dropped will again be underwater. The towers are formed when fresh water enters the lake from beneath the lake bed and mixes with the saline conditions to create the odd-looking structures. The towers are more odd than beautiful, lacking the color and pleasing shape of the hoodoos found at Bryce Canyon. Still, the area is quite interesting to visit and also to photograph; we were certainly not alone at 5:00am, and at times it was difficult to compose out images as we wished for all the other photographers wandering around.
Some of the photos from the morning:
And one of mine:
As I type were are driving back over Tioga Pass road and heading toward Yosemite Valley. I can’t wait to see some serious waterfall action.
