Empty Yosemite

I'm compelled to post the same news that I did last time because it is simply SO astonishing to have the park empty of visitors. I wish everyone could see Yosemite this way - but, of course, you cannot. It is precisely your presence that causes this experience of this place to vanish. We have a strong example of how observers affect the observed object. All I can tell you is that it is a magically different landscape, but as the door to the outside world opens, the remarkable quiet will soon be gone.

This is a place that is explicitly intended to be enjoyed by the public, so there's some guilt in a few of us being here while most are excluded. California is still under a 'stay at home' order, but backpackers and Half Dome dayhikers returned last week (barely noticed), and a half-portion of overnight and day visitors will be returning this week. Only two of the park's several hotels will open, and just two campgrounds for now. The new reservation system for daytime visits is gummed up with demand. Respect the rationale for limits, expect disappointment and perhaps you'll be pleasantly surprised with a lucky chance to enter a special place. For those with reservations, Tioga Road opens to cars next week. Official word is that the day use reservation system will be in place to October. Any limits on visitors will exasperate plenty of people/businesses, but there are also many who would like to see this as the start of a permanent system for limiting traffic.

Entrance gate kiosks have plastic sheeting between you and a ranger. Rangers are wearing facemasks where necessary, but I've yet to see a Class A uniform facemask. I really hope visitors will obey the rules and practice a shared common sense for staying healthy while SARS-CoV-2 is still expanding its range. Staying home is the best way to keep healthy, and while coming to Yosemite is the opposite of that, a visit here can be done cautiously if everyone is attentive to the hazard.

Extensive patches of Clarkia are blooming at lower elevations. Buckeyes are also maxed out, but starting to fade. Azalea, cow parsnip, globe gilia, and plenty of lupines are to be found in the Valley. Birds are still singing, with the two vireos dominating most of the day. We saw two peregrines at river level near El Capitan Bridge the other day, the female struggling to gain height with some heavy prey (possibly a duck). Two falcons also harried a juvenile golden eagle away from El Cap the same morning. We have 15 known nesting pairs in this park - a remarkable density of predators, and a good indicator of ecosystem health.

With some recent cool days and some clouds, the Merced River is running at about 20% of normal volume. It's going to be a dry, dry summer.

Ghost Town Notes

It's astonishing to have Yosemite Valley empty of all but a few hundred staff residents at this time of year. No traffic, no buses, no parking issues, no crowds on trails. It's just running water, greening plants, singing birds. Is this a glimpse of what it was like in the historic past? Or might it be a vision of a future when most people visit Yosemite through virtual reality?

The paved roads are still here, all the built environment of hotels, shops and all the housing for 1500 employees and their families is here. The infrastructure stands ready to host 4 million visitors - so this is very different from what Hutchings or Monroe would've seen for a Valley without lines of cars and acres of parking. The Valley is most like a ghost town now; all but abandoned in what should be busy season. The isolated community is getting out a bit on trails and its fun to see families biking around the safe, quiet roads.

The Valley has been populated by the usual suspects who've slipped past the gates: tanager, oriole, peewee, MacGillivray's, grosbeak, violet-green, etc. After a rainy April, then a hot stretch, the Merced River peaked at healthy 3500 cfs on 30 April, and it's dropped back to average now. This weekend's heat will bump it up again, but the usual annual peak for our river is the third week of May; can't say for sure yet, but we seem to be early. Tenaya Creek went around both sides of the footbridge near North Pines, partly due to a big logjam just downstream. Sentinel Creek flows in just 3 of its potential 8 channels, Eagle Creek and Horsetail Creek are dry on the Valley floor. Indian Creek flows only in its main channel, with none of its common leakage in the Village. Ribbon Creek flows in all four culverts under Northside Drive but isn't leaking into El Cap Meadow. Wosky Pond is quite small, only 15-20m long. Bridalveil Creek flows strongly, and all but overcomes the noise of machinery working on the access improvement project there. The 1 May snow surveys show 54% of average snowpack water content in the Merced watershed and less in the Tuolumne. The spring rains at lower elevations have produced an exceptionally thick growth of grass and forbs - which will be come a lot of fast fuels in another month.

Clarkia has started blooming west of the park and dry canyon slopes mean that the foothill growing season is tapering off. The corona pathogen hasn't reached into the park as far as we know and it is not at all tapering off in the state. There are only guesses about when Yosemite will reopen for visitors and what limits on visitors there might be. We'll all need to be patient for a while before re-populating this ghost town.

Happy Muir Day to You

Remember your 30th birthday? Or perhaps you're still looking forward to this milestone. Did you do something special, were you surrounded by family and/or friends, did you go someplace nice? Turning 30 is a big moment for many of us. One hundred and fifty-two years ago John Muir observed his 30th, newly arrived in California, far from home and friends. When Muir got to California he wasn't famous, he wasn't from an important family, and he didn't have much money. He was a blue-collar nobody, with an accent from his childhood in another country.

He'd come to San Francisco by ship from New York (via train across Panama), took a ferry to Oakland, and walked to Yosemite from there, via Pacheco Pass and the Coulterville Free Trail. He was expressly focused on seeing Yosemite, as he'd read about the Valley and the sequoias back east. We often picture him alone but he journeyed with another traveler, who'd been on the ship with him. He and Joseph Chilwell spent about two springtime weeks exploring Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove (he went right past the sequoias of Tuolumne and Merced Groves unawares), and he met Galen Clark along the way. The Valley and Grove were already protected lands, granted by Washington, D.C. to the care of Sacramento a few years prior. After their visit he and his companion left the mountains to seek ranch work in the lowest foothills near Snelling.

Somewhere on this short trek, Muir turns 30. How excited he must've been, exploring this new place at this vibrant time of year - and how daunting to be solo without Instagram, Zoom or TripAdvisor. Was there cake? Candles? Any presents? Did he even tell anyone it was his birthday? Just over a year later, Muir returns to the mountains with the sheep. It's a couple of years after that point that he starts to transition from the life of a transient laborer to that of a writer/naturalist, then conservationist and widely known public figure.

I think we are lucky to have had someone as generously-minded as Muir (and Clark, whose 206th birthday was 3 weeks ago) passing through Yosemite. I truly hope that someone wished him a happy birthday, raised a glass, or thought of him from home in Wisconsin or Scotland. May we all give a moment today to turn our thoughts to Muir's contributions to our lives...

Daylight Spendings Time

We are 10 days from an early equinox and the Sierra winter is melting away already. The Merced watershed has 38% of average snowpack water content and Yosemite Falls is running with the water that's not supposed to flow until June. Horsetail Fall didn't produce appreciable 'firefall.' The big storms just didn't come this season. The low-elevation canyon west of the park has a decent quantity of flower species and numbers, but the slopes look surprisingly dry instead of their usual green. Redbuds punctuate the verdure now.

Rough-winged swallows, white-throated swifts, and turkey vultures are all flying overhead in El Portal. This foothill region also has singing flickers and orange-crowned warblers; ruby-crowned kinglets are warming up with partial songs.

We are curious to see what COVID-19 does to Yosemite visitation this season, where people over 60 are advised to stay home, large gatherings are to be avoided and many people don't want to travel. My May trip to our sister national parks in China has cancelled, but I hope to go in September. With our park getting at least 25% of its visitors from other countries, we expect to see less of the world in Yosemite. The park will be here nonetheless.