Trip to California Day 4

Hello,

I am a bit overdue for my posts so I will try to post two blogs this week - Day 4 and Day 5 of my California trip (posts will be separate).

I mentioned in my previous post, that on my Day 4 I will be exploring Valley floor following Photographer's Guide to Yosemite by Michael Frey, then I will participate at Photographer's Walk program offered for Free by Park Rangers and then travel via Rt 120 to Sub-alpine terrain of Tuolumne meadow and possibly climb Lambert Dome and at the end take sunset pictures of Half Dome reflecting in Mirror Lake.

The Sunrise on May 27th 2014 (Day 4) was around 5:50am. According to Michael Fey book I had up to 60 minutes from sunrise to get the best light. Some of the iconic vistas in Yosemite are best during sunset, but there are a few that are absolutely gorgeous during the sunrise.

I woke up around 5:15-5:30am and by 6am was in the car trying to find exactly the locations of the best shots as specified in the book. (Note: you don't have to have a book to follow to find great spots to photograph. There are plenty in the park. I just wanted to challenge myself. Following locations in the book made me also feel like I was in class of the famous photographer. This little book was giving me this very feeling of a great guidance).

So my first stop was to catch El Capitan in the soft morning light before sun gets way above the horizon and the turn grant colors into white. I stopped at El Capitan picnic area to take the pictures:

My next stop was to catch Cathedral Rock as a reflection with morning light. There was very little snow in Yosemite this past winter and there was not much puddles of water on the valley floor. However I've got lucky:

I continued my drive around the Valley and took the shot of Bridal Veil Fall from the North Side Drive:

I turned around at Pohona Bridge and continue on South Side drive. I stopped at Cathedral Beach and picnic area and tried to photograph El Capitan and Merced River in the morning lights:

I continued my ride to Swinging Bridge to take pictures of Upper Yosemite Fall reflecting in the river:

After I finished with photos as I planned, I thought I have more than enough time to go to get gas (I wanted to make sure I have enough), get coffee and be ready for my Photographers Walk (I had about 50 minutes to spare). In order to get gas I had to drive all the way out (north west) to Crane Flat gas station. I under estimated this drive just a little bit. With all the twists and turns the 14.6 miles took me about 23-25 minutes to drive, plus filling gas, plus driving back and finding parking spot. All-n-all I was late for photographers walk by about 10-15 minutes and no breakfast (instead of this trip to the gas station I should be going to now empty dining room of Ahwanee Hotel and take pictures, which I eventually never had time... sigh). Luckily for me I was told at the Ansel Adams gallery (initial meet point) that I can easily catch up with the group at Cook's Meadow. Huffing and Puffing with camera backpack and tripod I caught up with the group. The next hour I spent following our guide around the Meadow and taking pictures of Upper & Lower Yosemite Falls and Merced river from El Capitan Bridge (I had Cliff Bar for breakfast):

After finishing with the Walk (it was interesting to hear the history. My only complaint was that the guide dwell on each point a little bit too long and for some reason had discussion right under the beaming sun and not in the shade)  I realized that I was a bit behind the schedule and by the time I got to the camp my partner (yes, I was not traveling alone) reminded me that I took all his clothes. He had everything in the car and not in the tent (like I did from the night before). While he was getting ready I made us lunches which consisted of Spam Sandwiches with humus and apples. We started our drive via North Side drive to Big Flat Road to Rt 120.

On the way to  Tuolumne Meadow I stopped at the popular stops like Olmsted Point and Tenaya Lake:

 Half Dome from Olmsted Point

 Tenaya Lake

When I reach almost the highest point of my drive snow patches were visible on the ground and the air was significantly cooler (at least 10-15F) than on the bottom of the Valley. The plan was to climb Lambert Dome and walk around the Meadow. I've got very excited when we've got to our destination, and (although I did my research) I parked at the wrong parking lot for climbing Lambert Dome. All information I read about climbing Lambert Dome that the best place to park is on the right side of Tioga Road at the parking lot dedicated for Dog Lake trail, which is after I passed dome on my left. Then I should start on Dog Lake trail and later to split from that trail and climb the dome. Unfortunately I did not drive long enough. So we parked on the left side of the road (parking lot for Lambert Dome trail) and started on the trail, which was a much longer route and we never completed it. (After I broke my ankle a few years ago and got pulmonary embolism, which was later treated and eliminated, my lungs became very weak. I was swimming 3 times a week prior to this trip for about a year, but high altitude (6K) was not allowing me to ascend easily). After gaining a few hundred feet of elevation, even before we reached trail to ascend the dome I was feeling way to tired and gasping for air and we turned around (I guess waking at  5:30am and running around for a few hours and then driving up, didn't help). So all I could do is to take more pictures:

 Lambert Dome

 Tuolumne Meadow

One thing I have to mention about my experience with this sub-alpine meadow that we were too early in the season. Everything I read about the Meadow, it mentioned flower blooms and pretty colorful landscape. Since we were at the end of May, there was some snow on the ground, and temperatures were in lower 50th, flowers were not ready to bloom yet so landscape was of a beige color.

After fiasco to climb Lambert Dome and no flowers blooming, we got into the car and started our way back to the camp. We needed to get to the camp, rest a little and make sure we have enough time to get a good spot to photograph Half Dome in the sunset light reflecting in Mirror Lake.  We stopped on the way back at Tenaya Lake and had our sandwiches.

Back at the camp, we had just enough time to clean up and get ready for a 2 mile walk to Mirror Lake. As I mentioned earlier, there was very little snow this past winter in Yosemite. As a result creek feeding Mirror Lake was weakening quick and even at the end of May the lake was drying out. Smaller the surface covered with water - more difficult to take reflection pictures of the monolith as big as Half Dome. (One suggestion: when you are trying to take picture in the mountains during sun-rise or sun-set, keep in mind that about half of your image will be in shade and the other half over-exposed. The compromise is "Half Natural Density Filter" - one thing I did not have.) Eventually I found a spot that I liked, but lack of this filter made me wonder if at least one shot will be worth showing. Luckily for me I took one underexposed shot and got myself a winner:

It was time to go back to camp. Eat risorony and chicken and get ready for the next day.
Next day (day 5) plan was to have breakfast early, climb Vernal Fall an drive to Wawona to see Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias 

Trip to California Day 3

Hello,

As I promised before I continue with my day 3 of the trip, I am going to expand a little bit on Geocaching and how I got involved in it.

I live in NJ and most of us have AAA - on road car service company. AAA issues quarterly (I think) magazine. These issues cover travel adventures and some car things. One of the articles I read a bout 4 years ago was a story about woman who liked to hide her personal effects just so she could find them later. Her husband wanted to make her life more interesting and he introduced her to Geocaching. Geocaching is the recreational activity of hunting for and finding a hidden object by means of GPS coordinates posted on a website. The community is quiet large with about 2.5 million geocaches and 6 million geocachers. Geocaches are scattered all over the world, but most of them are located in US. There are Geocaches in the cities and in the parks. State forest and parks are also have Geocaches, however I recently realized that some National Parks do not allow placement of caches for preservation reasons. I always liked outdoors and I wanted to try this Geocaching. Geocaching is an activity required use of handheld GPS. At the beginning I only had car GPS and although it can bring you to the right location, it was not accurate enough and battery did not last long at all. I did not want to invest too much money into activity I was not sure I like, so I shopped around and found Geomate Jr. on Amazon: "The easiest and quickest way to get in on the geocaching fun, the Geomate.jr is an incredibly affordable and amazingly easy to use geocaching GPS--just switch it on anywhere in the U.S., and be directed to your closest geocache. It's really that easy! With over 250,000 pre-loaded geocache locations covering all 50 U.S. states, it's an outdoor adventure just waiting to happen anywhere, anytime, straight out of the box! No downloads, internet connection, or typing in coordinates necessary."

Geomate Jr is convenient when you have kids and want them to enjoy outdoors, it is also good for the beginner just to get hang of the game. However, if you want to get serious about Geocaching you have to get GPS that will allow you to have information on Geocaches without need to print it: description, hints, comments from people previously recovered the cache, etc. After a few geocaches found with Geomate Jr, I started to consider Geocaching as a hobby and I wanted to try to find Geocaches in less accessible places (state parks vs. city parks). Currently I own DeLorme 60N. Photography is my biggest passion. hiking will be the next and I try to fit Geocaching whenever I have that ability. In my trip to California I planned to find at least one geocache at each stop I made. Since I was planning to visit four national parks, I had to look for geocaches near the parks.

Back to the trip. This is my third day of the Trip. I've rented a car day before, got supplies at Trader Joe's, and saw as much a I possibly could in San Francisco. Everything was packed and ready to go by 8am. I checked out from the hotel, got breakfast in nearby coffee shop. I found very interesting that there are a lot of small coffee shops all over San Francisco. Some of them (including the one near Lombard Motor Inn) have specialty coffee types and some of them are really bizarre, i.e. beans are coming from the goat poop that ate certain plant. One cup of such coffee costs $18. I think my entire breakfast with large dark roast coffee and egg and ham bagel cost half of that. Money aside, I was not brave enough to try this specialty coffee. May be next time.

After quick breakfast I was on my way to Yosemite National Park. I have only been to one National Park before - Acadia, but I did not camp in the park, was not into photography just yet or hiking and knew nothing about Geocaching (Note: The only reason I was visiting Acadia National Park, because my cruise trip to Canada got cancelled and I decided to drive to Canada and then go home through Acadia National Park). So I was very excited to go to Yosemite. It was Monday morning - the Memorial Day and luckily there was not much traffic on the road. The ride was interesting I have never saw hills covered with sun burned grass going for miles as far as eye can see. Unfortunately I was on the highway and had no good point to stop and take pictures.

As I mentioned earlier there are no physical Geocaches in most of the National Parks and Yosemite is not and exception, so I chose location at the corner where Rt. 120 splits from Rt. 108 to go into the Sierra. The temperatures inland not far from Yosemite park border compared to San Francisco were about 10-15F higher and I hoped that in Yosemite Valley (4000ft) it will be cooler. The geocache was successfully located and I continued to my final destination.

Driving into Yosemite could be considered challenging for not so experienced drivers. The pavement was good but all switch backs are really get to you at the end. The first views of the valley and Sierra were amazing. I've been to Europe and Alps and mountains are not new to me, but my heart is always stops when I see vistas like that:

I did not not realize that there is almost an hour drive from the entrance gate at Crane Flat to the North Pine Campground where I was staying. As a result I arrived to camp much later than anticipated. The lunch was leftovers of Deep Dish Chicago Pizza from the night before. The camp was all set up by 2:30pm with tent in place and food and all smelly items in the bear box.

I planned to go to look around the valley floor, Yosemite Falls, Ahwanee Hotel grand room, enjoy sunset and star gazing at Glacier point.

It is Monday of Memorial Day weekend and although there was very little traffic on the way out of SF, crowd was rather large even at 2pm in Yosemite, making driving slow and parking challenging. If I to have more time I would probably try to walk (instead of driving) between facilities and focal points in the valley, but I decided to drive to safe time. I managed to park at the day parking lot across from visitor center. I located Ansel Adams Gallery for my next day morning photography walk, took shuttle to Yosemite Falls. There are a lot much better writers that have described the magnificence and grande of the surroundings in Yosemite, so I will not try doing it. All I have to say that you have to be these to fully take it in. Yes, I have to agree that having lots of people around can ruin the serenity, but just to see it all was amazing. Even simple WOW is not going to cut it.

After visiting Lower Yosemite falls overlook, I took shuttle to the next stop (Camp 4) and took hiking trail to Swinging Bridge, taking pictures of the Valley Floor and taking it all in:

By the time I was done taking pictures and enjoying the walk, I realized that it was about 4:30, I was about half an hour away from the car (I needed to go back to the shuttle stop, ride around, walk to the car...) and it was about an hour drive to Glacier Point (to catch sunset) from the Valley floor and I wanted to stop at the Tunnel View overlook. So the decision was made to drive up Glacier point, stop and the Tunnel View overlook and to have dinner at Glacier Point (Meal Ready to Use - MRE, read about it later) and wait for sunset and starry skies.

I could not see rainbow on Bridal Veil Fall and the Veil was not bery large, but I liked it

I parked the car at Glacier point parking lot a little bit after 6pm. Short walk to Glacier Point overlook revealed incredible vistas: Half Dome, Cloud Rest and the rest of High Sierra

In addition there were a few water falls I could see from the top:

All three sections of the Yosemite Falls (picture was taken without tripod and came out a bit hazy due to sun flood)

and Vernal Fall (bottom), which I was planning to climb and Nevada Fall (upper)

I could continue taking pictures, but realized that mountains will not walk away and I had to eat. So I had an MRE for dinner. I have a friend that gave me a few meals-ready-to eat (MRE) that could completely replaced need to cook dinner a few nights during the trip. MREs can be purchased from Amazon or any Army surplus stores, however the best out there are the one provided for military. If you decide to buy the one from Amazon and Army store make sure they have heaters. Some of them do not. MREs are very convenient and some of them taste really good (my favorite one is Chicken Noodle and Beef Brisket) . The disadvantage is that they are heavy so you can't carry them for backpacking. The advantage that you get enough food after log day of walking and looking around and don't want to cook dinner. In addition to main entree there are a few condiments. Condiments are not the same between the packs and you would not know what they are until you open the pack. There is a list of what condiments are but the combination varies between each pack. My favorite are skittles, bread and cheese spread.

Sunset was approaching quickly. As part of educational program of the Park ranger was giving a talk about the sunset that can be observed from the Glacier Point and the history. While ranger was talking I was trying to capture more of jaw dropping (in my opinion) views:

Almost right after the sunset when the last sun rays had disappear and most people started to go away, the different crowd started to come in. These people were waiting for stars. But somewhere is between sunset and total darkness (twilight) camera picked up very interesting shades of Half Dome:

And then stars started to come out

I was back at the camp by 11pm. I was tired but excited with all I saw during the day. Next day would be filled with the following:
- Drive around the Valley and taking pictures at sunrise following Michael Frye's book "The Photographer's Guide to Yosemite" (more about the book in my next post)
- Take Photography walk organized by Park around Cook's Meadow and take more photos of Yosemite Falls
- Drive up Tioga Road to Sub-alpine terrain of Tuolumne meadow and possibly climb Lambert Dome
- Get back to the Valley and photograph Half Dome reflected in Mirror Lake at sunset

The capture of day 4 will follow in my next post