Vote every day

Yosemite did not notice that there was an election this week. The falls kept pouring, leaves continued to drop, critters went about their business with no regard for what we think is important. New green grass brightens the Valley and El Portal, as our growing season commences. Half Dome looks virtually the same as it did when Washington was president.

October turned into quite a wet month. Yosemite Falls came roaring back to life in the most marked transition that I've observed - from months of absence to May-caliber runoff volume. We had two 2-year storms within a week, the river went from less than 20 cfs to going above 3000 cfs twice; it's since dropped a lot, but is still more full than average. High country roads were closed by snow but have since re-opened in a stretch of considerable warmth. A rockfall above Arch Rock closed Hwy. 140 for about 24 hours.

As Edward Abbey wrote, 'Nature may be indifferent to our love, but never unfaithful.' This sanctuary will always be here for us. What happens in D.C. is one thing but you can vote for Yosemite every day of the week by acting on your concerns for places like this. How you treat others, what work you do, what you do with your money and with your time, all make real differences for the world and the future. Vote often.

Spider Web Season

It's been a warm October so far, though we are entering a few stormy days. This is the time of year when spiders launch themselves into the air to disperse. From an exposed perch, some spiders release a streamer of thin silk until the wind picks up the silk and the spider. This is a way that a species can distribute itself to new terrain. Of course, the spiders can't steer their flight and many will be carried into inhospitable habitat. Warm daytime updrafts in our sunlit canyon will loft thousands of meters of spider silk up along the cliffs. If you shield your eyes from the sun you're certain to see streamers of spider silk sailing above; binoculars reveal these non-winged invertebrates hundreds or thousands of feet up. Arachnologists refer to this behavior as 'ballooning' but I prefer the term 'kiting' as the lengths of silk are more like kite tails. Sailing spiders form a part of the community of aerial plankton - that's a real term for the column of insects, spiders, and other things adrift in the skies. When updrafts swirl in canyon eddies, great clots of spider silk form in the sky. When lift ceases or the clumps become too heavy, they drop to the ground and we get a glimpse of this marvelous behavior of something that can't 'fly' but can soar. Spider silk clots show up well on pavement, but they're a little harder to pick out forests and meadows.

The sugar maple in Old Yosemite Village is at its peak color. Our native deciduous oaks, maples and especially dogbane are also colorful now. The Merced is below average at 18 cfs, but will be starting its annual rise tonight. We hope that Yosemite Falls will return to visible flow this weekend.

Summer Adios

We had a rainy day in the Valley last week = the end of summer's endless blue skies. Park visitation is slowing down, and my overstuffed schedule is slowing enough to pick up these notes again; I should acknowledge that my field season is just not the time for me to have much desk time. Last year showed an increase in visitors and this year is up 20% over that; some say we'll reach 5 million visitors by year's end. The publicity around the NPS centennial and low gas prices are likely factors in the growth. The portion of European visitors seems to be up despite the poor exchange rate for them.

Bucks have lost their velvet. Dogwoods sport bright red berries. The river dropped to 30 cfs (and bumped up a bit from recent high country precip). There were hints of snow in/above Tuolumne. Indian hemp is turning its brightest yellow, but oaks, maples and cottonwoods are still green. Lower down, the poison oak is nearly bare now.

Lyell 'Glacier' continues to shrink away; last winter's roughly normal snowfall did not grow the ice much. Our bighorn sheep herds are doing well. The past 2+ weeks have shown a steady sequence of small, shallow earthquakes beneath the southern Clark Range. Our fire season has been minimal; one lightning fire started 12 June near Chilnualna Lake and has crept through only about 300 acres in 3 months- the kind of low-intensity fire we need more of.

Traffic flow in the Valley is exciting at the moment, with construction on the road and parking in the Yosemite Village day parking area. If you come for a visit between now and next spring, you'll find some disruptions to driving and parking, but the end result should be a nice improvement. Also in the spring, Mariposa Grove will reopen to the public - great changes are taking place there, too.

Hello to Clarkia

It's a very nice spring in Yosemite. Waterfalls are cranking; the Merced peaked just a little early, at an above average (not extreme) flow a few days ago. Another peak is possible, though seems unlikely. Snowpack water content from 1 May was 57% of normal for the Merced watershed. Lower elevation streams are shrinking away, but tributaries like Sentinel and Ribbon are flowing strongly in multiple channels. Meadows are wet. Tioga Road opened to cars yesterday - and we expect snow tomorrow night. There is still a lot of snow and runoff in the high country, so consider that in hiking plans.

Wildflowers continue to delight: dogwoods are fading in the Valley, but yet to emerge at Tuolumne Grove. The foothills show nice swatches of Clarkia (Farewell-to-Spring); buckeye and elderberry are in bloom. The Valley has azalea showing up, violets, groundsel, snowplant. Gooseberry has gone to fruit.

Tanagers, grosbeaks and vireos fill the canopies with song. Mallard ducklings are paddling the quiet waters already. Flickers and hairies are in/out of nest cavities now. Bears are active at most elevations.

Pent up interest in real winter (after 4 dry years), in serious waterfalls, promotion of the NPS centennial, and likely some other factors have boosted visitation to levels that are at times uncomfortable. As of late April we were up a shocking 40% over last year, making some park staff concerned about the coming summertime crowds. Weekends have featured mile-long entrance gate lines, slow crawls through Valley gridlock, full parking lots and much disappointment all around. During this busy past week, however, I did three all-day hikes in the park and saw not one single person the whole time, just bears, flowers and peaks.

It is not hard to avoid the congestion if you start early and seek out remote routes. Leave your car in a gateway town and take the YARTS bus to the Valley. For good reason, the world wants to and deserves to see Yosemite. It's amazing 12 months a year, every year.

Vernal Disease

After 4 dry winters, this wet season has brought on an explosion of spring flora at lower elevations west of the park boundary. Though the mature ponderosas west of the park are undergoing shocking mortality, the forbs are flaunting the virtues of an annual lifestyle. Poppies, redbud, popcorn flower, fiddlenecks, woodland star, baby blue-eyes, birdseye gilia, filaree and more are all at/near their maximum bloom. The Merced Canyon is lush and dazzling right now.

Last week was warm and dry, the snow line retreated uphill. We had a bit of rain yesterday and last night, also with a high snowline. Depending on the aspect, there's a lot of dry ground at 6000' already. All this melt has swollen the river early; the Merced has been running above average for several months now. Today it's at over 200% of average, and it shows the classic diurnal cycling of melting snow. This is exciting to have all this water flowing but it's early; the river and waterfalls shouldn't be so big for another month and a half. We are seeing some of May's runoff happening now, suggesting that mid-summer flows will be quite low. This projection could change, depending what the next two months bring us for cloud cover (sun is a more important snow-melter than warmth), cold and storms.

Despite green spring conditions down low, there's still abundant snow above 7000 feet. With yesterday's overcast numerous snow worms were observed on the surface at our ski area at Monroe Meadows. These are not a mythical creature; they're relatives of the better-known (though still mysterious) ice worms of Alaska (Mesenchytraeus). Like the ice worms, our winter annelids are seldom seen atop the snow.

March 28th marks the 202nd birthday of Guardian Galen Clark. Mr. Clark will again be appearing to share his tale at the Yosemite Theater this spring starting on April 7.

Spring-ish

February was remarkably warm in Yosemite and we had only one storm. The Merced Canyon below the park is filled with flowers now. Redbuds and poppies are near their brightest already. Popcorn flower, rue anemone, shooting stars, fiddlenecks, fiesta flower, and many others are profuse in bloom. Many of these flowers will suffer from the heavy storms that are arriving this weekend. We had a bit of rain last evening, but it'll be heavy on Saturday and Sunday, with possible flooding. The snowlevel is forecast to start high (7-8000'), and later drop to below 4000 feet.

The warm temperatures have melted a lot of snow, such that our snowpack has below-average water content now. Yosemite Falls and the other falls are running really big. We are seeing April's runoff now; an extra-wet March is needed to get the Sierra a 'normal' season of precipitation.

Those facility names/logos did change with the arrival of our new concessioner this week. Many people seem not to realize that this names trademark situation is not over yet. Temporary signs have been put in place, and there are several legal proceedings underway that will finalize a determination at some future point. Whatever the outcome, it's my hope that people will focus on the real Yosemite, rather than on the transient resort infrastructure or the names of these facilities. Our national park and the experiences it offers are treasures belong to us and that can never be taken away.

Otters and Waters

The river otters (at least 3) that had been in El Portal for a couple of months, are now being seen in Yosemite Valley. Our natural 'firefall' has suddenly made national news, though Horsetail Fall has been putting on its bright February sunset displays for millennia. Conservancy naturalist, MRoss reports 15-16 species of wildflowers in bloom along Foresta Road above El Portal. Bobcat sightings seem to have increased in the Valley recently. Swifts have emerged on some warm days to feed on airborne insects over the canyon. Many of us felt a couple of earthquakes on the 16th; they were a 4.8 and a 4.3 magnitude, 16km deep, on the east side of the Sierra, NW of Big Pine.

Our snowfall has been near average at this point in the season; it's been warm here for two weeks, so there's been a lot of snowpack consolidation and melting. The Merced River is flowing at better than 150% of average. Sentinel, Ribbon and Royal Arch Falls are very healthy now. We are all hoping that there'll be another couple stormy months yet.

The Valley has been incredibly busy this winter, with holiday weekends featuring hour-long entrance gate waits, crawling traffic, and parking very hard to find. The road to Badger Pass had to be closed last weekend, as there was nowhere for cars to go. Is it pent up excitement that we finally have a real winter? Will this spring/summer be extra crowded because we'll have more (enduring) waterfall flow than we've seen in five years?

Ahwahnee Hotel, No; Ahwahnee, Yes

Interesting changes may be underway in our park regarding the historical nomenclature of a handful of facilities, related to the turnover of the concessioner. (It will be some time before we hear the last word on this matter.) These changes are profoundly upsetting to many people, but it's my sense that Yosemite will not notice our legal squabble. Remember Hutchings House? How about Hutchings Hotel? What about Sentinel Hotel? Upper Hotel? Maybe Coulter and Murphy's? These were all more or less the same place, operating under different names over the years. No harm done.

A key Yosemite Valley location in a certain point of time was Royal Arch Farm. To the surprise of locals and visitors it was replaced by Harris' Camping Ground. With some fuss from some people, that, in turn, was eliminated and replaced with a commercial stable that came to be called Kenneyville. Kenneyville was central to the experiences of thousands of park visitors for decades; most people couldn't imagine it being removed from Yosemite Valley, yet it was. Its location was taken by the Ahwahnee.

Even Yosemite Falls, North Dome and giant sequoia trees had different names (many) over the millennia.

Can you picture Yosemite Valley in 1925? In 1925 there was no such thing as The Ahwahnee Hotel - and Yosemite was still grand. Neither John Muir nor Galen Clark ever imagined such a hotel but Yosemite moved them nonetheless. Now there is such a hotel, and its traditional name appears to be changing. The hotel will really be the same - so will Curry Village, Yosemite Lodge, Badger Pass and Wawona Hotel (which reverts to an earlier name), whatever they're called.

Not neglecting the importance of labels and traditions, I genuinely feel that Yosemite won't be changed. Have amenities distracted us from what the national park and the land truly are? Rocks and trees, water and seasons, won't be a whit less wonderful. Jays and oaks won't care, bears and domes won't be diminished if we re-label a hotel. People will come from around the world to experience this landscape. They will marvel at the park's terrain and heritage, but won't miss the luxurious Stoneman Hotel, stopping at Oh My! Point or browsing Jorgensen's Studio. Kudos to NPS for not spending $51m of public money (or letting Aramark spend this, which their customers will have to make up), but black marks on NPS/Interior solicitors for allowing this difficulty to develop, starting in 1988. Let's remember that our structures and names are transient, but nature's beauty endures (and changes) no matter what we do.

Hwy. 140 Occupied

A group of boulders has peacefully occupied Highway 140 between El Portal and Yosemite Valley. They claim that this canyon has always been theirs and that they intend to take it back from the federal government, no matter how long it takes. An unnamed spokesperson made numerous references to their granitic constitution and made an appeal for other patriotic rocks to join their takeover.

NPS has stated that they respect the heritage of these boulders and hope this occupation can be resolved without issue. Last week's continuous wet weather may have triggered this outcome.