Thursday, May 20, 2010

Geo Notes


Last week's heavy rains brought a small debris flow down the Cathedral Spires gully, covering Southside Drive with several inches of sand and gravel. A rockfall at Church Bowl seriously injured a local girl last week; thankfully she appears to be recovering well. Another good-sized rockfall occured yesterday, from beneath Horsetail Fall on El Capitan, sending up a big cloud of dust from the ledge below the East Buttress.
The famous sugar maple is just starting to turn. Native big-leafed maples vary in their color now from bright yellow, to leaf margins starting to brown, to altogether green. Willows and cottonwoods will start to color soon, but haven't yet. The meadows in Yosemite Valley are the most yellow places at the moment. Torreya 'drupes' are mature and dropping in the isolated pockets where they grow. Invasive black locust trees are finally being removed from Old Yosemite Village by Resource Management.

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