Yosemite National Park

Pongo Discovers the Sierras

March 16, 2014

Soundtrack:

• Okkerville River -- The Silver Gymnasium
• Sun Kill Moon -- Benji
• The Band -- Live at the Academy of Music, 1971
• The Flaming Lips -- At War with the Mystics
• Sleater-Kinney -- Hot Rocks

It's been about a year since I've been to Yosemite Valley.  March is a great time to go.  It's not too crowded.  The weather is usually nice.  The waterfalls are flowing.  I prefer the valley with a nice blanket of snow on it, but that just wasn't in the cards this year.  March will do nicely, though.

California Mule Deer -- Yosemite National Park, CA

Ladykiller Strikes a Pose

I brought Pongo along for this trip.  He'd never been to the mountains before.  I was hoping to bring him to the valley for a snow trip, but there just wasn't a whole lot of snow this year.

As usual, Pongo worked his magic with the ladies.  He flirted with the rangers at the gate.  He gave them both a big grin and they though he looked very happy, which of course he was.  I told them he was excited to be on an adventure, which was absolutely true.  What I didn't tell them was that he's a hopeless flirt with women and he was working them over like he does all his other conquests.  He's shameless.

I should rent him out to desperate single guys in San Francisco.  Meet women in the city!  Money back guarantee!  I'd make a killing.

Upper Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park, CA

Mourning Cloak

I took Pongo on a four mile hike to Mirror Lake.  As usual, the "lake" itself was not impressive.  It's a fickle body of water.  It's completely dried up in summer, basically just a big cat litter box.  In December, when there's snow on the ground and the water is clear it's easy to see how it got its name.  It can be beautiful.  On this day in March it came off as just a slow moving, wide stretch of Tenaya Creek, which is basically what it is.

Mirror Lake, Yosemite National Park, CA

Notice how it looks more like Fall than Spring or Winter in photo of Mirror Lake?  It was like that throughout the valley.  Some of the trees were still clinging to last summer's remaining dried leaves, and there were plenty on the ground as well.  It looks like Yosemite is still waiting for a good storm to blow through and get Spring rolling.  It doesn't look like that's going to happen, though.  It's going to be an interesting year.

Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, CA

The high point for Pongo on this trip was getting face to face to a deer.  Well, maybe four feet away from being face to face anyway.

I was taking pictures of Half Dome on a paved trail near a meadow.  I saw the deer from about thirty yards away.  We stopped to watch it.  Pongo is always into the wildlife on these adventures.  He's very good at chasing little critters out from under bushes and he gets excited when he sees birds flying or hears ducks quacking.  He doesn't quite know what to think about deer.  We've had one other close encounter with a deer on a paved trail at Pinnacles, and it froze Pongo in his tracks.  He was confounded until the deer turned and ran into the bushes, at which point Pongo decided it must be prey and tried to chase it.

I didn't want to spook the deer, so we just stood where we were.  I thought the deer would move off when it saw us, but it did the opposite.  It walked right up to us.  Either it was hoping we'd feed it or it was yet another lovely lady caught in Pongo's web of love.  I have to admit, it seemed to be more interested in Pongo than me.  Pongo was pretty brave until the deer made a move to cross the path.  At that point, Pongo moved from in front of me to behind me and watched the deer from around my legs.  Big chicken.  

Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite National Park, CA

El Capitan

There's something about black and white photography and Yosemite.  Over and over again, I find myself preferring the black and white variations of the pictures.  I think part of it has to do with how receptive the images are to a lot of contrast in monochrome.  Ansel Adams used a lot of contrast in his Yosemite photography, at least in what I'm familiar with.  The big rocks lend themselves to it, I guess.  I'm no Ansel Adams, for damn sure, but I do like how some of these shots look in black and white, especially considering I was shooting in relatively high sun.

Tunnel View, Yosemite National Park, CA