If I Were Going...: California, Here We Come

Yosemite Valley

Ah, Yosemite! I both love it and hate it. Love it because it is gorgeous beyond belief. Hate it because it is so popular, making it impossible to book in advance and crazy crowded when you are there.

Yosemite Valley

When I was planning the trip, I could not find a book-in-advance campsite and, although there are first-come-first-served sites, who wants to risk not having a spot? So, I booked a room for three nights at the Big Trees Lodge.

Now, that’s really the Wawona Lodge, but the vendor had to change the name because the previous concessionaire, which had lost the lodging contract with Yosemite National Park, still held the rights to that name and all the other iconic lodging names in the Park. That dispute has been resolved and I believe the original names will be reinstated.

So, we had a room about an hour outside the crowded Yosemite Valley. We were a bit sad that we couldn’t camp, but we decided we’d make do. I’ll get to that later. First, let me talk a little about Yosemite.

The Park

Bridalveil Fall

Located in the western Sierra Nevada of Central California, Yosemite is bounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. Almost 95 percent of the 1,189-square-mile Park (roughly the size of Rhode Island) is designated wilderness.

A small crowd in the Mariposa Grove

About 4 million people visit Yosemite each year, spending most of their time in the seven square miles of Yosemite Valley. The Park set a visitation record in 2016, surpassing 5 million. Although Yellowstone was the first National Park, Yosemite was central to the development of the idea. President Abraham Lincoln signed initial protection into law in 1864.

John Muir led a successful movement to have Congress establish a larger National Park by 1890, one which encompassed the Valley and its surrounding mountains and forests, paving the way for the National Park System.

Half Dome, left, and Vernal and Nevada Falls, right

Yosemite has an elevation range from 2,127 to 13,114 feet and contains five major vegetation zones: chaparral and oak woodland, lower montane forest, upper montane forest, subalpine zone and alpine. The Park is home to about 1,400 species of plants, including more than 160 rare ones. The park's varied habitats support over 250 species of vertebrates, which include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

California Ground Squirrel, left, and California Sister Butterfly, right

Yosemite contains thousands of lakes and ponds, 1,600 miles of streams, 800 miles of hiking trails and 350 miles of roads. Two federally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers, the Merced and the Tuolumne, begin within Yosemite.

A quiet spot on the Merced

About 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and then tilted to form gentle western slopes and steep eastern slopes. The uplift increased the steepness of stream and river beds, which then sculpted deep, narrow canyons. About one million years ago, glaciers at the higher alpine meadows moved down the river valleys, reaching thicknesses approaching 4,000 feet in Yosemite Valley. The movement of the ice masses created the scenic U-shaped Valley that is the trademark of the Park.

The Merced River snaking through Yosemite Valley

The name "Yosemite," which means "killer" in Miwok, originally referred to a tribe that lived in the Valley. Previously, the area had been called "Ahwahnee" ("big mouth") by indigenous people. The fancy hotel in the Valley was – and probably soon will be again – named Ahwahnee.

Ahwahnee Hotel

Yosemite Valley has been inhabited for nearly 3,000 years, although humans may have first visited the area as long ago as 10,000 years. For many years, it was a major trading area for a number of California tribes, primarily Northern Paiute, Miwok and Mono.

The California Gold Rush in the mid-19th century dramatically brought in larger numbers of European-Americans, creating competition with the indigenous peoples for resources.

There is a historic village near Wawona

In 1851, as part of the Mariposa Wars intended to suppress Native American resistance, the United States Mariposa Battalion followed natives into the Valley and were “awestruck” by its beauty. Letters and articles written by members of the Battalion helped popularize the Valley among white tourists and artists.

The Valley’s native inhabitants were moved to a reservation near Fresno and their village was burned. Eventually, some were allowed to return and live within the boundaries of the Park and many got tourism industry jobs as laborers, maids, cooks or servers. Some also made a living by selling baskets or performing for tourists. Another great example of how the incoming white people pushed out the natives!

Early Native American baskets; Photo: NPS

Mariposa Grove

Tourism began in earnest in the mid-1850s and increased after the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869.

Three stagecoach roads were built in the mid-1870s to provide better access and, in 1879, the Wawona Hotel (named after the original village, which, in turn, was named after the giant sequoia trees – "Wawona" in Miwok – that grow nearby) was built to serve tourists visiting the nearby Mariposa Grove of Giant Trees. Yosemite's first concession was established in 1884 with a bakery and store. In 1916, the newly established National Park Service granted a 20-year concession to the Desmond Park Service Company, which bought out or built hotels, stores, camps, a dairy, a garage and other park services. Desmond changed its name to the Yosemite National Park Company in December 1917.

Beginning in 1899, the Curry Company also provided concessions in the park, among them Camp Curry, formerly known as Curry Village.

When the National Park Service decided to limit the number of concessionaires in each National Park in 1925, the Curry Company and the Yosemite National Park Company were forced to merge to form the Yosemite Park & Curry Company.

In 1913, after a fair amount of opposition, Congress authorized building the O'Shaughnessy Dam in Hetch Hetchy, which I will talk about later.

O'Shaughnessy Dam

Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, Tioga Pass Road and campgrounds at Tenaya and Merced Lakes were completed in 1916. Automobiles started to enter the park following the construction of all-weather highways to the Park.

Over the years, the Park Service has sought to reduce negative impact on the environment. For example, they stopped the practice called “Firefall,” in which red-hot embers were pushed off a cliff near Glacier Point at night. This is not to be confused with a natural “firefall” phenomenon in which sunlight hits Yosemite Falls, making it look like it’s on fire.

Natural firefall (photo) should not be confused with man-made (brochure); Photo: CNN.com

To deal with traffic congestion in Yosemite Valley during the summer, the park implemented a shuttle service, using electric buses.

Accommodations
Although he hadn’t really talked about it in advance, Scott was eager to try some more night photography in Yosemite. Unfortunately, the Wawona is fairly far – on dark and winding roads – from good vantage points for getting the night sky above Yosemite Valley.

The Big Trees/Wawona is charming, but far from Yosemite Valley

We decided that Glacier Point offered the best options for the night sky because it has some wide vistas from which you can see both El Capitan and Half Dome, which rise 3,300 and 4,800 feet, respectively, above the Valley floor.

El Capitan, left, and Half Dome, right

We noticed that there was a very pretty campground with availability on the Glacier Point road. Hmmmmm …

Our campsite at Bridalveil Creek Campground

So, even though out expensive hotel was non-refundable, we secured a very inexpensive campsite at the Bridalveil Creek Campground where we could park the teardrop camper and get back-and-forth to the Valley and the Valley views for night shots. Over the next three days, we slept at the hotel only the last night and slept at the campsite two nights.

You can't have a campfire in a hotel room; Photo: Scott Stevens

Our room at the hotel didn’t have a private bath, but we did have unlimited access to hot showers and the pool. So we enjoyed those amenities while also sleeping in the outdoors. The night we did stay at the Big Trees/Wawona, we had an actual fire alarm, although we never determined if there was a blaze. Still, we had to evacuate and wait for the Fire Department, which took a fair amount of time to arrive. The Big Trees/Wawona is wooden, so a fire would have been very bad.

No peace at the inn

As I said, the campsite was lovely. Because of a water main issue after a recent forest fire, this campground has no running water and no toilets except porta-potties. But, it was so pretty. And, a Black Bear visited to check out the bear boxes while we were there.

Campground Bear; Photo: Scott Stevens

The number of tourists has created issues for the Black Bears in the Park.

The bears have learned to identify coolers and break into cars, so Park rules stipulate that food and food containers (water jugs, pic-i-nic baskets and coolers) must be put in bear boxes in campsites and many parking lots.

Bear box and a Bear ignoring the rules

Sights
So, back to night photography. We had great results with capturing the Valley at Glacier Point ...

Nighttime at Glacier Point

... but the Milky Way was over our shoulders ...

The Milky Way from Glacier Point

Tunnel View

Then, the next night, we went to Tunnel View, which offers the quintessential view of Yosemite Valley.

It was a bit farther from our campsite, but worth the winding drive (and we didn't hit any animals; a big plus).

The Milky Way was pretty high in the sky and, even late at night, there was a fair amount of traffic. When doing star photography, you have to pause every time headlights go by, so traffic is an issue. But, we still got a few nice shots.

Fortunately, the Milky Way was on display early in the evening, so we were able to get our night shots and still be tucked into our comfy trailer by midnight.

While in Yosemite, most of our time was spent seeing – and photographing – the sights. This included the Valley from both Glacier Point …

Glacier Point view

… and Tunnel View …

Tunnel View view

We were thrilled – and I do mean thrilled – that the air was virtually smoke-free. Many of my recent visits to Yosemite have been marred by thick smoke from nearby forest fires.

In the summer of 2013 it was very smoky

I believe the only exception was when I visited during January 2013 and got to see the Park in winter (fortunately the roads were clear enough to make it there without chains!).

Winter, 2013

So, after taking lots of hazy shots on other trips, we were able to get some very pretty and very clear shots of the Valley. This included Yosemite Falls (despite huge crowds) …

Yosemite Falls

... and Bridalveil Fall …

Bridalveil Fall

By the way, Yosemite’s many sheer drop-offs, glacial steps and hanging valleys result in a high concentration of waterfalls in a relatively small area. Generally, the waterfalls have high volumes in April, May and June when snowmelt is high, often dropping off or even drying out in late summer. However, while we were there, all the falls were in full array because California had had an uncharacteristically wet summer.

Sometimes waterfalls dry up in August; not this year

Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America at 2,425 feet (in two segments, the longest of which is 1,430 feet high).

Yosemite Falls

Bridalveil Fall, which is the waterfall seen from Tunnel View, is 617 feet high.

Bridalveil Fall

Vernal Falls is 318 feet high ...

Vernal Falls

... and Nevada Falls is 594 feet high ...

Nevada Falls

Both Vernal and Nevada Falls can be seen from Glacier Point and both were extremely robust for August. My friend Donna and I hiked to Vernal and Nevada in 2011.

Hiking with Donna

While in the Valley, we spent a lot of time photographing El Capitan, one of the major rock-climbing locations in the Park. Selected as the name of the monolith by the Mariposa Battalion in 1851, El Capitan is a loose Spanish translation of the local Miwok name for the cliff, variously transcribed as "To-to-kon oo-lah" or "To-tock-ah-noo-lah" and meaning "the chief" or "rock chief.”

El Capitan's sheer face

El Capitan is composed almost entirely a pale, coarse-grained granite that formed approximately 100 million years ago. A separate intrusion of igneous rock, the Taft Granite, forms the uppermost portions of the cliff face and a third igneous rock, diorite, is present as dark-veined intrusions through both kinds of granite.

A gentler view of El Capitan

Along with most of the other rock formations of Yosemite Valley, El Capitan was carved by glaciers, primarily during the Sherwin Glaciation, which lasted from approximately 1.3 to 1 million years ago. The El Capitan Granite is relatively free of joints, and as a result the glacial ice did not erode the rock face as much as other, more jointed, rocks nearby. There are more than 70 climbing routes on "El Cap" of various difficulties and danger levels.

El Capitan climbers

Over thirty fatalities have been recorded between 1905 and 2018 on El Capitan, including deaths of seasoned climbers. Critics blame a recent increase of fatalities (five deaths from 2013 to 2018) in part on “increased competition around timed ascents, social media fame and competing for deals with equipment manufacturers or advertisers.”

We also spent a fair amount of time at both Glacier Point, enjoying view of Half Dome.

Half Dome from Glacier Point

Half Dome is a granite dome at the eastern end of Yosemite Valley that is named for its distinct shape. One side is a sheer face while the other three sides are smooth and round, making it appear like a dome cut in half.

The impression from the valley floor that this is a round dome that has lost its northwest half is an illusion. From Washburn Point, Half Dome can be seen as a thin ridge of rock, an arête, that is oriented northeast-southwest, with its southeast side almost as steep as its northwest side except for the very top.

As late as the 1870s, Half Dome was described as "perfectly inaccessible," but today, Half Dome may be ascended in several different ways.

One is an 8.5-mile trail from the valley floor that includes several hundred feet of granite stairs and a steep final ascent aided by a pair of braided steel cables on posts.

The other approaches are rock-climbing routes from the valley up Half Dome's vertical northwest face.

Woman's face or tears?

Half Dome was originally called "Tis-sa-ack," meaning Cleft Rock in Ahwahnechee. Or, it may be the name of a mother from a native legend; a face seen on Half Dome is supposed to be hers.

Others say the Ahwahneechee named Half Dome "Face of a Young Woman Stained with Tears" ("Tis-se'-yak") because of the brown-black lichens that form dark vertical drip-like stripes along drainage tracks in the rock faces.

We also spent time photographing from Tunnel View, enjoying the clear skies.

Tunnel View

Giant Sequoia

Mariposa Grove
Another place we visited was the Mariposa Grove, the largest of the three groves of ancient giant sequoia trees in Yosemite.

The Mariposa Grove has 200 trees, the Tuolumne Grove has 25 and the Merced Grove has 20.

I will talk about these magnificent trees in my next post, but I do want to comment a bit on the Mariposa Grove.

We fell in love with this magical place the first time we visited Yosemite back in 1981 and we found that, if you get up early, you can (or you could back then) have the place to yourself before the hordes of tourists descend in the afternoon.

Twice, I have been alone in that grove with Scott.

But, growing popularity created problems – parking, vandalism, damage to the trees’ roots, etc. So, in 2014, the Yosemite Conservancy and the National Park Service broke ground on a $40 million collaborative effort to restore Mariposa Grove. The Grove closed in the spring of 2015 and re-opened last June.

The restoration, which is, indeed, beautiful, restored the habitat and natural hydrology, realigned roads and trails that were located in sensitive areas, constructed a welcome plaza, relocated the parking area, added a shuttle service, added accessible trails and removed commercial activities from the Grove such as the gift shop and tram tours.

It was the right thing to do for the trees, but it makes the experience of visit the trees far less personal and more like visiting a museum. There are more fences and railings and it is far more difficult to venture in alone. Something gained …

The changes are good for the trees

Something lost …

Signage for Yosemite's biggest tree, the General Sherman; Photo: Scott Stevens

Scott was pretty disappointed, but we still both enjoyed our time in the Grove. Plus, we knew we’d be seeing more giant sequoias at our next stop, Sequoia National Park.

We spent most of our time in Wawona and above Yosemite Valley (which, as I recalled, was just too crowded to spend much time in). We drove in from Mono Lake via Tuolumne, but never made it out that way again.

Picnic on the Tuolomne Road; left Photo: Scott Stevens

Hetch Hetchy
I did make sure we got to Hetch Hetchy, which Caty and I had visited in the summer of 2013, but Scott had never seen.

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

Simultaneously a valley, a reservoir and a water system, Hetch Hetchy is in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. For thousands of years before the arrival of white settlers in the 1850s, the valley was inhabited by Native Americans. During the late 19th century, the valley was renowned for its natural beauty – often compared to that of Yosemite Valley. But, it was also targeted for the development of water supply for irrigation and municipal interests.

In 1923, the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed on the Tuolumne River, flooding the entire valley under the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The dam and reservoir are the centerpiece of the Hetch Hetchy Project, which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 miles west to San Francisco and the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Multiple views of the dam

Before damming, high granite formations produced a narrow three-mile-long valley with an average depth of 1,800 ft. and a maximum depth of more than 3,000 ft. The valley floor consisted of roughly 1,200 acres of marshy meadows fringed by pine forest, through which meandered the Tuolumne River and numerous tributary streams. The valley floor often flooded in the spring when snow melt in the high Sierra cascaded down the Tuolumne River and backed up behind the narrow gorge now spanned by the dam. The entire valley is now flooded under an average 300 ft. of water behind the dam, creating an eight-mile-long reservoir. Some of the valley occasionally remerges when drought hits, as it did in 1955, 1977 and 1991.

Among the tallest waterfalls in the U.S., Wapama Falls, at 1,080 feet, and Tueeulala Falls, at 840 feet, are both located in Hetch Hetchy Valley. Rancheria Falls is located farther southeast, on Rancheria Creek.

Some say Hetch Hetchy is a mini-Yosemite Valley

Hetch Hetchy Valley began as a V-shaped river canyon cut out by the ancestral Tuolumne River. About 1 million years ago, the extensive Sherwin glaciation widened, deepened and straightened river valleys along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, including Hetch Hetchy, Yosemite Valley and Kings Canyon farther to the south.

During the last glacial period, the Tioga Glacier formed from extensive icefields in the upper Tuolumne River watershed; between 110,000 and 10,000 years ago, Hetch Hetchy Valley was sculpted into its present shape by repeated advance and retreat of the ice, which also removed extensive talus deposits that may have accumulated in the valley since the Sherwin period. At its maximum extent, Tioga Glacier may have been 60 miles long and up to 4,000 feet thick, filling Hetch Hetchy Valley to the brim and spilling over the sides, carving out the present rugged plateau country to the north and southwest. When the glacier retreated for the final time, sediment-laden meltwater deposited thick layers of silt, forming the flat alluvial floodplain of the valley floor. Compared with Yosemite Valley, the walls of Hetch Hetchy are smoother and rounder because it was glaciated to a greater extent.

View from above; Photo: Scott Stevens

The valley's name may be derived from the Miwok word hatchhatchie, which means "edible grasses" or "magpie." Chief Tenaya of the Yosemite Valley's Ahwaneechee tribe claimed that Hetch Hetchy was Miwok for "Valley of the Two Trees,” referring to a pair of yellow pines that once stood at the head of Hetch Hetchy. Miwok names are still used for features, including Tueeulala Fall, Wapama Fall and Kolana Rock.

While its cousin Yosemite Valley to the south had permanent Miwok settlements, Hetch Hetchy was only seasonally inhabited. This was likely because of Hetch Hetchy's penchant for flooding.

Hetch Hetchy

Hetch Hetchy was visited by early explorers and, then, California Gold Rush prospectors. Miners didn't stay long, however, because richer deposits occurred further south along the Merced River and in the Big Oak Flat area.

After the valley's native inhabitants were driven out by the newcomers, it was used by ranchers, many of whom were former miners, to graze livestock.

The valley was known for its natural beauty, but it was never a popular tourist destination because of poor access.

Plus, the famous Yosemite Valley is just 20 miles to the south.

Those who did visit it were enchanted by its scenery, but encountered difficulties with the primitive conditions and, in summertime, swarms of mosquitoes.

When Yosemite Valley became part of a state park in 1864, Hetch Hetchy received no such designation. As the grazing of livestock damaged native plants in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, John Muir pressed for the protection of both valleys under a single National Park. After many disputes with ranchers, the Park’s boundaries were finally settled in the early 1900s.

Idyllic place for a stroll

Interest in using the valley as a water source or reservoir dates back as far as the 1850s, when the Tuolumne Valley Water Company proposed developing water storage there for irrigation. By the 1880s, San Francisco was looking to Hetch Hetchy water as a fix for its outdated and unreliable water system. The city would try repeatedly to acquire water rights, including in 1901, 1903 and 1905, but was continually rebuffed because of conflicts with irrigation districts that had senior water rights on the Tuolumne River, and because of the valley's National Park status.

San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake and subsequent fire highlighted the inadequacy of the city’s water system, leading to a successful application for water rights in 1908 that provoked a seven-year environmental struggle with the Sierra Club, led by John Muir.

Dam outflow

Because of Hetch Hetchy’s location within Yosemite National Park, an act of Congress was needed to authorize building a dam, which was signed in 1913 under the conditions that power and water derived from the river could only be used for public interests. Ultimately, the city sold hydropower from the dam to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), which led to decades of legal wrangling and controversy.

Work on the Hetch Hetchy Project began in 1914.

The tunnel goes to the trail around the reservoir

Twenty years later the first water from the project reached San Francisco. The dam and reservoir, combined with a series of aqueducts, tunnels, hydroelectric plants and eight other storage dams, comprise a system known as the Hetch Hetchy Project, which provides 80 percent of the water for 2.6 million people in the San Francisco and San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda Counties.

Water from Hetch Hetchy is some of the cleanest municipal water in the United States; San Francisco isn’t even required by law to filter its tap water, although the water is disinfected by ozonation and exposure to UV.

Clear water

The water quality is high because the upper Tuolumne River drainage basin consists mostly of bare granite with very little sediment or organic material.

The watershed is strictly protected; swimming and boating are prohibited at the reservoir, although fishing is permitted at both the reservoir and the rivers that feed it.

The battle over Hetch Hetchy Valley continues today between those who wish to retain the dam and reservoir and those who wish to drain the reservoir and return Hetch Hetchy Valley to its former state.

The National Park Service has said that within two years of draining the valley, grasses would cover most of its floor and, within 10 years, clumps of cone-bearing trees and some oaks would take root. Within 50 years, vegetative cover would be complete except for exposed rocky areas. In this unmanaged scenario, where nature is left to take hold in the valley, eventually a forest would grow, rather than the meadow being restored. However, the same NPS study also finds that with intensive management, an outcome in which "the entire valley would appear much as it did before construction of the reservoir" is feasible.

Spillway

The dam would not have to be completely removed; rather, it would only be necessary to cut a hole through the base in order to drain the water and restore natural flows of the Tuolumne River. Most of the dam would remain in place, both to avoid the costs of demolition and removal, and to serve as a monument for the workers who built it. The water storage provided at Hetch Hetchy could be transferred into Lake Don Pedro lower on the Tuolumne River by raising the New Don Pedro Dam 30 ft. Furthermore, the removal of O'Shaughnessy Dam would not require costly sediment control measures, as would be typical on most dam removal projects, because of the high quality of the Tuolumne River water. In the 90 years since its construction, only 2 inches of sediment has been deposited in Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

Opponents of dam removal have pointed out that the flooding of the Hetch Hetchy Valley has deterred the crowds that overrun other areas of Yosemite National Park. Hetch Hetchy is the least visited area of the Park. Who know which way this fight will go?

We enjoyed our drive out – including stopping to photograph wildflowers ...

Wildflowers by a historic cabin

... and a very cooperative Cassin’s Finch ...

Cassin's Finch

But it was beastly hot when we got there.

Our entrance to the valley was delayed by a pack horse train ...

NPS mules

... but when we finally arrived in the Valley, Scott rested in the car while I walked across the dam and through a tunnel to the trail that eventually goes to Wapama Falls. Just a pleasant little walk.

Wapama Falls

We missed a turn on our way back and started down the very impressive Tuolumne River Gorge (on a less impressive winding dirt road) before turning back to find the correct route. On that road, we briefly saw a Black Bear run across the road and disappear into the thick roadside shrubbery. Too quick for a photo, but a Bear sighting!