For those in the area photograph in the smoke and haze - and wear breathing filters while you do it.
A good chance to get images early and late filtered by the smoke. Can't get them any other time. Maybe
a good time to see about expanding what one thinks has the potential for good images?
” Never attribute to inspiration that which can be adequately explained by delusion”.
Yep. When I was a young feller the first thing I was told about selecting a campsite was to take my hat off and look up.Originally Posted by Vaughn
The Park Service has been removing dead trees along roads and in camp grounds but there are so many is seems a losing battle.
Heavy snows should topple quite a few in the winter when the park is least populated. In the Sierra National Forest I've seen Mono Winds level a mountain side of healthy trees.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
And they were not concerned about being prosecuted for arson.
Yosemite Valley itself is not the issue with dry tinder. The upper end of it has seen some wildfires in recent years. But the major concern is all the dead trees around and below. But nowadays fires can go catastrophic like never before. Trees that have survived multiple droughts are now dead dead due to warm winters creating a beetle epidemic. The wooded foothills are now semi-suburbanized and ripe for human loss of life. And the annual control burns set by Indians ended with the Gold Rush, and deadfall has accumulated ever since. Some of the FS and NP attempts to restore that practice have backfired and gotten out of control. Fires now hit gas lines and propane tanks. Otherwise, this morning I spoke to someone who just returned from Yosemite Valley, and besides being hot, they couldn't even see the cliffs due to smoke.
Just missed your intermediate post, Sal. When I was growing up we did create perimeters around the nearest village using control burns. But those were legal and closely supervised, with ample Forest Service as well as volunteer firefighting personnel and trucks right there. That practice ended with more stringent air quality regulations as well as the advent of rotary trimmers. But the notion of anyone just going out and starting fires is, and always should be, a very serious felony. That's how people end up homeless and even die. Seen it all close-up myself, more than once. The fires Indians set were annual and quickly moved low to the ground to clear meadows. They'd stash their possessions under a big rock somewhere (I know of a lot of those "somewheres"), then set fires behind them just before heading to cooler high country at the start of each summer. The result of this was lots of big open meadows which attracted deer and made local travel easier - a very very different scenario from today's octopus-arm-like development into overgrown brush. Fires today behave differently, catastrophically, and even generate their own cyclone-like wind storms.
Which one? This is my seventh in the thread.
Of course. That's why I posted what I did in #26.
Well, I wasn't trying to zero in on you Sal as much as just interject some facts that many outside the West are unaware of, and might think can be solved with the stroke of a pen or a bunch of logging trucks harvesting commercially worthless sticks. This kind of thing should be addressed as a national emergency, but those in power claim it doesn't even exist.
Today's news is that the fire grew while part of the Tioga Pass Rd was temporarily closed due to flooding and a rock slide.
Apparently it didn't rain in the right place!
More evacuations ordered.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
Latest---
"On Tuesday, officials announced that large sections of Yosemite National Park would be closed starting at noon on Wednesday due to the Ferguson Fire. This includes Highway 41, the Yosemite Valley and Wawona.
People staying in the park are being asked to leave by Wednesday morning."
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weath...smoke/70005581
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
Yep. Yosemite Valley and its approaches are now officially closed to all visitors. This whole area is being evacuated. Hwy 120 remains open over Tioga Pass. Gosh, from the news shots coming in, the amber light in the Valley must be amazing; but I'd
be sneezing and getting nosebleeds for a month afterwards if I was there.
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