A Mess in Yosemite right now--a cautionary

[John Kasaian]

Be careful out there!
Split Mountain avalanche:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/to...7a81c71c&ei=48

[Alan Klein]

As an Easterner, I only visited Yosemite once in my life as a last-minute decision while I was visiting a cousin in Mountainview California. We were fortunate to get a room in the Valley Park Hotel. We drove in on Tioga Road through Mono Lake from Lake Tahoe which we also visited. We really didn't know about other places within Yosemite. We didn't have the time or the camping and hiking equipment. So we visited the main Yosemite sights and took a side trip to see the big trees. Most visitors are like us who don't have a lot of time to visit or know much about the area so they also visit just the tourist sights. Locals ought to give us "lemmings" a little slack.

[Drew Wiley]

Don't worry. Lemming aren't in any real danger there .... unless you encounter a hungry coyote!

But the combination of the Covid shutdown and now a severe winter, along with all kinds of messed up roads, has caused a serious famine to those town and services dependent upon Yosemite tourism. Little places like Lee Vining beside Mono Lake have a relatively short busy season at best; and here we are, midsummer already, with Tioga Pass not even open yet. Yeah, there is a certain amount of year-round trucker and local traffic through there via Hwy 395 on the east side of the mountains, but that by itself isn't near enough to keep those little economies well afloat. Then i'm looking at the uh,er, rather hideous facilities expansion on the west side like in Oakhurst, yet the Badger Pass ski resort in Yosemite closed all winter, the south entrance highway seriously disrupted by forest fires and now heavy snowfall damage, and really, only the approach up the Merced River through Mariposa having been generally functional, though itself closed periodically due to both snowfall and Yos Valley flooding. ... So the coyotes must have been missing their tasty lemmings, and the bears their long awaited pick-a-nickic boxes, as Yogi would have pronounced it.

[Michael R]

Sounds like mess on top of mess. Forget about it and come east. There’s a park just down the block from me. Probably around an acre, maybe less, with trees and grass and some footpaths and a fountain and a splash pad in the summer. If you’re more rugged you can do Mount Royal which is a few hundred feet tall with parks, forested areas, a man made lake, tourists and a lookout!

Don't worry. Lemming aren't in any real danger there .... unless you encounter a hungry coyote!

But the combination of the Covid shutdown and now a severe winter, along with all kinds of messed up roads, has caused a serious famine to those town and services dependent upon Yosemite tourism. Little places like Lee Vining beside Mono Lake have a relatively short busy season at best; and here we are, midsummer already, with Tioga Pass not even open yet. Yeah, there is a certain amount of year-round trucker and local traffic through there via Hwy 395 on the east side of the mountains, but that by itself isn't near enough to keep those little economies well afloat. Then i'm looking at the uh,er, rather hideous facilities expansion on the west side like in Oakhurst, yet the Badger Pass ski resort in Yosemite closed all winter, the south entrance highway seriously disrupted by forest fires and now heavy snowfall damage, and really, only the approach up the Merced River through Mariposa having been generally functional, though itself closed periodically due to both snowfall and Yos Valley flooding. ... So the coyotes must have been missing their tasty lemmings, and the bears their long awaited pick-a-nickic boxes, as Yogi would have pronounced it.

[Drew Wiley]

No thanks. We choked on bad air for three years in a row due to a series of catastrophic forest fires which never seemed to end. Now it's your turn. But in our case, a lot of trees burnt down which were probably taller than your Mt Royal. But the height of peaks varies in the US. In Kansas, the highest spot depends on what cattle left behind the day before. In Florida, it depends on whether the thickness of a sunning alligator is factored in or not.

I'm trying to prepare a couple of sidekicks for what will be different about this particular "summer" in the mountains. Three people got overtaken by an avalanche yesterday, one of them fatally - in midsummer, not midwinter!

[Michael R]

Alright. Then I suggest Precipice Lake.

No thanks. We choked on bad air for three years in a row due to a series of catastrophic forest fires which never seemed to end. Now it's your turn. But in our case, a lot of trees burnt down which were probably taller than your Mt Royal. But the height of peaks varies in the US. In Kansas, the highest spot depends on what cattle left behind the day before. In Florida, it depends on whether the thickness of a sunning alligator is factored in or not.

[Alan Klein]

Don't worry. Lemming aren't in any real danger there .... unless you encounter a hungry coyote!

But the combination of the Covid shutdown and now a severe winter, along with all kinds of messed up roads, has caused a serious famine to those town and services dependent upon Yosemite tourism. Little places like Lee Vining beside Mono Lake have a relatively short busy season at best; and here we are, midsummer already, with Tioga Pass not even open yet. Yeah, there is a certain amount of year-round trucker and local traffic through there via Hwy 395 on the east side of the mountains, but that by itself isn't near enough to keep those little economies well afloat. Then i'm looking at the uh,er, rather hideous facilities expansion on the west side like in Oakhurst, yet the Badger Pass ski resort in Yosemite closed all winter, the south entrance highway seriously disrupted by forest fires and now heavy snowfall damage, and really, only the approach up the Merced River through Mariposa having been generally functional, though itself closed periodically due to both snowfall and Yos Valley flooding. ... So the coyotes must have been missing their tasty lemmings, and the bears their long awaited pick-a-nickic boxes, as Yogi would have pronounced it.

You can't win. First people complain about global warming and drought. Now they complain about too much snow.

[ic-racer]

Yes, Kalifornia isn't the only place in the USA to photograph outdoors.
Since famous photographers from the coast have not come tromping though 'the middle of nowhere,' one can make some unique images...

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah ice racer, but can you find that in late summer too, traveling a relatively short distance, just by changing elevation? And truly unique images can be found everywhere, even in Yosemite Valley, despite millions of photos being taken there. But I'm glad you've found lovely subject matter close to home. I do a lot of that too, especially given the high price of gasoline lately.

Alan - the global thermostat is broken. Both drought and severe storms are being amplified, and are hopscotching each other. The last time that happened in a known rapid Jekyll & Hyde mood swing was during the close of the Ice Ages, when it was really intense.