Poppies and Teddy

The Merced River canyon below the park boundary has an early abundance of wildflowers including slopes covered with poppies in places. We've had a few modest storms over the past couple of weeks, adding a bit of snow above 5000 feet. The wet has brought out fiddlenecks, cranesbill, popcorn flower, baby blue eyes, paintbrush, red maids, etc. I haven't been up the South Fork but I bet it's getting colorful.
Chorus frogs are singing in various places, California ground squirrels are emerging in some spots, a turkey vulture was seen in the Valley this week. In El Portal, flickers and titmice have been 'singing.'
While spring tiptoes in at low elevations, we had a bit of frazil ice in Yosemite Creek this week, too.
The park has a new official place name: Roosevelt Point. This is on the south rim of Yosemite Valley, just west of Sentinel Dome, near the top of Sentinel Falls. Some scholars believe that Muir and Roosevelt camped near here on the second night of their 1903 trip together. They're usually described as having camped at Glacier Point because that's a better known landmark than the forest near Sentinel Dome, and because of the famous photo-portrait of the two men at Glacier Point. Sentinel Creek would've been the most reliable water source for a camp, so it's likely that they actually spent the night there.
TR will be coming to Yosemite Conservancy's Spring Forum on March 31 in the form of actor Alan Sutterfield. He and John Muir (Lee Stetson) will chat about their time together and their passion for park stewardship. Muir visits us again on John Muir Day, April 21, this time in the person of actor Frank Helling. He'll be strolling with Muir's great-great grandson, Robert Hanna for one of the Conservancy's field seminars.
We pursue Muir's footsteps again in July, backpacking on a field seminar to where he recognized the first known glacier in the Sierra. Climate change (as even Muir realized back then) has removed all but relictual evidence of the glacier's presence. We visit a living glacier in August's field seminar trek to the north slopes of Mt. Lyell.
History lives on.

Lyell Glacier

I just returned from a couple days up at Lyell and Maclure Glaciers with videographers Josh Helling and Steve Bumgardner and park geologist Greg Stock. Greg was checking some of his instrumentation on the glacier while Steve and Josh were working on an installment of the excellent Yosemite Nature Notes video series. I was on my annual survey trip to take the photographs that show the rate of recession of the ice.
There's been no debate about climate change in Yosemite for 150 years; even young John Muir knew that the park's glaciers were melting away. The first glacier that Muir explored is now gone and the Maclure is half the size it was when Muir conducted the first quantitative glacier measurements in North America. That reducing trend continues with the east lobe of Lyell Glacier having wasted away to a couple small flakes of ice on the cirque headwall, and the west lobe steadily shrinking year by year. Last winter's above average snowfall is still evident but isn't likely to sustain the glacier significantly. According to Greg, the western quarter of the west lobe is not quite a meter thick; a major areal reduction looms. The east edge of the west lobe has fallen 37 meters in elevation in the past 60 years.
For next summer I'm planning a Yosemite Conservancy trip to see Lyell, and a trek to where Muir found the first recognized glacier in the Sierra. Think about a visit to Yosemite's ice before it's gone...