Winter Bypass

We really have skipped past winter here again. Aside from last winter, this has been a season much like those winters of 2011-2016: mild and dry. There's still time for some catch-up precipitation, but it's extremely unlikely to make up for the absence of storms so far. I was up at 7500' along the shoulder of Half Dome with BK the other day. We explored an abandoned trail and stopped by G. Anderson's spring and cabin site; there was barely any snow to speak of.

Above Rancheria Flat (El Portal), numerous flowers are blooming: poppies, red maids, Erodium, woodland star, Nemophila, popcorn flower, fiddlenecks, blue dicks, Stellaria, dead nettle, birds-eye gilia, etc. Some buckeyes are still tight buds, while others are dazzling green with 10cm leaves out. Elderberries are also leafing out. Redbud still seem a ways off.

The Merced River is running below average. It's displaying the diurnal cycle of snowmelt, draining the water that's supposed to flow off in April/May. The aridity of the season means a poor showing for the Horsetail Fall 'firefall' phenomenon but crowds are coming nonetheless; viral imagery from other years seems to matter more than natural reality on the ground. NPS and YC have arranged an impressive structure for managing access to the main viewing areas. Without more than a wet streak at Horsetail, at least the system gets a dry run. (Yes, intentional.)

Summer stars are rising before dawn now: Scorpio and the Triangle. The Falcon Heavy orbital burn was visible for a few minutes over Yosemite last week, an unexpected celestial apparition.

Candy Weather Again

Warm, dry conditions continue in a very poor winter for the Sierra. We've had a few storms and there is some snow (mostly above 7000'), but we seem to be having a weak winter like those of 2011-2015. Things could still change, but this feels too similar to those seasons of poor skiing, thin waterfalls and early fires. The Merced is running just a bit above average volume, but this is runoff that shouldn't be happening until April. Candy weather: it's nice in the moment, but you know it's not good for anyone in the long term.

Fiddleneck, chickweed and blue dick are blooming in the lower Merced Canyon now. I always look for the first fiddlenecks on the grassy bank outside my Yosemite Conservancy office in El Portal; the first optimist opened 16 January. Waterfall buttercups are profuse in their favored locations (first flowers noted 31 December near Ned's Gulch).

I walked up the remnants of the 1856 Coulterville Free Trail the other day. This climbs steeply to the north and west from below Pohono Bridge up the canyon wall toward Tamarack Flat, intersecting with the Old Big Oak Flat Road somewhere west of the road's Cascade Creek crossing. The road was put through to the Valley floor in 1874, so the trail was used by stock and foot traffic for less than 20 years. Like most of the early routes built by Euro-Americans, it was developed not by the government but by entrepreneurs hoping to make a buck from tolls. In places the trail is still clearly built and obvious, in places it's been entirely absorbed back into the landscape since it was replaced by the stage road when Grant (who later visited Yosemite) was president 144 years ago. This photo shows rockwork along Fireplace Creek.

One special traveler who arrived via the Coulterville Free Trail and got his first view of Yosemite Valley was John Muir in 1868. It's interesting to imagine Muir and his traveling companion Joseph Chilwell finishing their walk from San Francisco Bay by leaving the snows of Crane Flat, descending this steep toll path, and seeing the cliffs and Bridalveil Fall. Muir was a nobody when he showed up in Yosemite; he was 30 years old, a transient laborer, who passed through the Valley and Mariposa Grove then went to find work in the ranch country of the lowest Sierra foothills to the west of us. The Valley and the Grove were well-known tourist attractions and had already become protected reserves four years before Muir came to California. More than a year after coming over the Coulterville Trail he came back into the high country above Yosemite Valley tending a herd of sheep and then found blue collar work in the Valley for two years. After that point he was mostly a resident of the East Bay, building a career that included plenty of return visits to Yosemite Valley and the higher terrain to the east. The rest is history. You never know which poor immigrant will go on to change our world so much for the better.

Sprung

Spring came early after our non-winter. So far, 2015 is California's warmest year on record, and the Sierra has one of its weakest snowpacks. Light storms over the past two months have left recent snow at the Sierra crest, have kept the Merced from bottoming out, and have delayed the blue-skies-til-October summertime that we expect for Yosemite Valley and below.

In the past two weeks I've enjoyed being rained on, snowed on and hailed on. These storms are not overcoming general drought effects, however: the Merced is flowing at about 1/5th of average volume and dead ponderosas greet visitors ascending from the foothills.

While you may read simplistic headlines that beetles are killing trees, they can only do this because the trees are weakened by drought and in some cases had been further stressed by a history of fire suppression. Preventing periodic ground fires allows too many trees to mature, each challenged by competition with too many neighbors. Regular low-intensity fires thin out young trees so that survivors are stronger and more resilient to drought and therefore to beetles.

On top of a precipitation deficit, warmer temperatures and an increased proportion of dead trees, these intermittent moderate storms have grown more light fuels - the kind that dry quickly and burn fast. Indications for an active fire season are worrying. For the moment, the wildflowers are still nice up and down the Merced corridor: globe gilia, LOTS of Clarkia, blazing star, tarweed, Datura, etc. Buckeyes are fading. There are still a few bright dogwoods in their highest, shadiest locales (Tuolumne Grove, Chinquapin).

Looking further ahead, strong El Nino conditions are shaping up in the Pacific and though there's no guarantee, we may have a wet winter coming.