My Photobucket is jumping all over the place so I'll just do a standard TR here with pix and prose.
Half Dome from Camp Curry, Yosemite Valley, CA
We spent five days and nights between Yosemite and Sequoia.
Cabeza de Vaca, our rolling domicile in Yosemite's Upper Pines Campground.
What a difference a day makes. This is Friday morning:
All these campsites filled after sundown on Friday night resulting in a full camp on Saturday morning: Taken from about the same place, our rig is behind that long white trailer, center pic.
In the morning we did our annual climb up the mist trail to the Vernal and Nevada falls bridge:
The top of a side canyon on the mist trail, Yosemite:
Texture of the granite and flora on the face of half dome:
One of the granite domes in Yosemite from the valley floor.
The main road out on the north side of the Valley.
Cabeza de Vaca on the loose:
Yosemite Valley meadow at peak color:
This was an El Nino year and the Pineapple Express dumped a lot of warm precip on the Sierra Nevada which melted all the snow. The resulting flood washed out campgrounds in Yosemite, not to be rebuilt. For a perspective see next pic:
Just off the sidewalk is the normally placid Merced River, especially in a drought year.
El Capitan and sister granite monoliths surround Yosemite Valley. Merced River in foreground:
A closer view of El Cap:
More color on the way out of Yosemite heading toward Route 41 south to Sequoia:
The Iconic shot of Yosemite Valley. What a place. Unfortunately it is being loved to death:
Fast forward to our 'pad' at Azalea campground, Sequoia N.P., the second oldest of the National Parks:
A fellow TC-er across the lane at Azalea Campground, Sequoia N.P.: I never did get to talk to them.
Friends come down to the meadow to consume what's left of the last green grass before winter sets in:
In our camp, we were surrounded by Sequoias. I humbly studied this one while sipping a Margarita. It takes 3 pics to get it all in: The lower portion. Campers came around trying to scrounge any firewood handy and I had to tell them that wet, redwood will not burn but smoke them out.
The middle portion:
The top: The tree was full of chipmunk homes and every so often a tiny head would pop out and then to one of those short branches to survey the new food that just drove into camp.
In Grant Grove. Even with wide angle, I had to keep backing up all the way across the parking lot to get this shot.
It is difficult to convey the immensity of these trees.
Jeanie in the belly of a down Sequoia. The passage is 150 feet to the other end.
The base of the Grant Tree is 24 feet in diameter:Every single mature tree has seen many wild fires which takes out the competition, but cannot kill the mighty sequoiadendron giganteum.
The Grant Tree; as close as you can get.
The top of the Grant Tree:
The small trees in the foreground are Sequoiadendron gigantieum, in training. They have a few thousand years to go. The giant Sequoias really never die, they....just fall over. As long as they are upright they will continue to grow. The secret ingredient is tanin, fire and pest proof and thick bark. The tree starts with a seed about the size of an oat flake and can live over 3000 years.
Just out of the N.P. we followed a dirt road to the Chicago Stump:
The road got steeper and narrower down to the graveyard of Sequoias, felled in the 1890's. The greatest stump of all is the Chicago Stump, cut down in 1893. This is the largest tree ever felled on the planet. 32 feet across at the base, it was an estimated 3200 years old when felled. The piece just above what you see here was hollowed out; cut into vertical panels and the section reassembeld at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It was called the California Hoax as no one in Chicago believed it was real.
Jeanie touching the stump that was growing 1200 years B.C. Yes, those are little Sequoias around the stump. It is humbling, to say the least. I don't think many folks get to see this magnificent stump as the road in is pretty rough.
jefe at the altar of Redwood;
We carried on along the Kings River in Kings Canyon N.P. on the last two days before the snow gate was locked.
The Kings River has seen many floods and droughts over the eons. In a drought time it looks like this:
Our last camp was at Azalea campground and our final supper was timed with the sunset. jefe
Half Dome from Camp Curry, Yosemite Valley, CA
We spent five days and nights between Yosemite and Sequoia.
Cabeza de Vaca, our rolling domicile in Yosemite's Upper Pines Campground.
What a difference a day makes. This is Friday morning:
All these campsites filled after sundown on Friday night resulting in a full camp on Saturday morning: Taken from about the same place, our rig is behind that long white trailer, center pic.
In the morning we did our annual climb up the mist trail to the Vernal and Nevada falls bridge:
The top of a side canyon on the mist trail, Yosemite:
Texture of the granite and flora on the face of half dome:
One of the granite domes in Yosemite from the valley floor.
The main road out on the north side of the Valley.
Cabeza de Vaca on the loose:
Yosemite Valley meadow at peak color:
This was an El Nino year and the Pineapple Express dumped a lot of warm precip on the Sierra Nevada which melted all the snow. The resulting flood washed out campgrounds in Yosemite, not to be rebuilt. For a perspective see next pic:
Just off the sidewalk is the normally placid Merced River, especially in a drought year.
El Capitan and sister granite monoliths surround Yosemite Valley. Merced River in foreground:
A closer view of El Cap:
More color on the way out of Yosemite heading toward Route 41 south to Sequoia:
The Iconic shot of Yosemite Valley. What a place. Unfortunately it is being loved to death:
Fast forward to our 'pad' at Azalea campground, Sequoia N.P., the second oldest of the National Parks:
A fellow TC-er across the lane at Azalea Campground, Sequoia N.P.: I never did get to talk to them.
Friends come down to the meadow to consume what's left of the last green grass before winter sets in:
In our camp, we were surrounded by Sequoias. I humbly studied this one while sipping a Margarita. It takes 3 pics to get it all in: The lower portion. Campers came around trying to scrounge any firewood handy and I had to tell them that wet, redwood will not burn but smoke them out.
The middle portion:
The top: The tree was full of chipmunk homes and every so often a tiny head would pop out and then to one of those short branches to survey the new food that just drove into camp.
In Grant Grove. Even with wide angle, I had to keep backing up all the way across the parking lot to get this shot.
It is difficult to convey the immensity of these trees.
Jeanie in the belly of a down Sequoia. The passage is 150 feet to the other end.
The base of the Grant Tree is 24 feet in diameter:Every single mature tree has seen many wild fires which takes out the competition, but cannot kill the mighty sequoiadendron giganteum.
The Grant Tree; as close as you can get.
The top of the Grant Tree:
The small trees in the foreground are Sequoiadendron gigantieum, in training. They have a few thousand years to go. The giant Sequoias really never die, they....just fall over. As long as they are upright they will continue to grow. The secret ingredient is tanin, fire and pest proof and thick bark. The tree starts with a seed about the size of an oat flake and can live over 3000 years.
Just out of the N.P. we followed a dirt road to the Chicago Stump:
The road got steeper and narrower down to the graveyard of Sequoias, felled in the 1890's. The greatest stump of all is the Chicago Stump, cut down in 1893. This is the largest tree ever felled on the planet. 32 feet across at the base, it was an estimated 3200 years old when felled. The piece just above what you see here was hollowed out; cut into vertical panels and the section reassembeld at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It was called the California Hoax as no one in Chicago believed it was real.
Jeanie touching the stump that was growing 1200 years B.C. Yes, those are little Sequoias around the stump. It is humbling, to say the least. I don't think many folks get to see this magnificent stump as the road in is pretty rough.
jefe at the altar of Redwood;
We carried on along the Kings River in Kings Canyon N.P. on the last two days before the snow gate was locked.
The Kings River has seen many floods and droughts over the eons. In a drought time it looks like this:
Our last camp was at Azalea campground and our final supper was timed with the sunset. jefe
