Critters

Black Bear sow and cub.

Cub feeding on wild rasberries.

This is a wilderness squirrel that eats squirrel food.

This is a squirrel that lives around humans and eats human food. I think we can learn something from this.

Blue Grouse

This is the way things move and get done in the high country.

Full Moon Walk

Every full moon evening I host a Full Moon Walk up to Sentinel Dome. I lug up a spotting scope, tripod and other visual aids. I talk about moon facts, myths and phrases. It's a lot of fun for me.

Here I am utilizing audience volunteers to illustrate the phases of the moon.

Lecturing about the moon.

Clouds Rest Hike

Clouds Rest. Not Mount Clouds Rest or Clouds Rest Mountain...just Clouds Rest. This is my destination for the day. 14 miles and thousands of feet elevation change. I'm getting an early predawn start here.

This is not a good image but it all I could get. This pix illustrates how glaciers opened up the canyon to make a huge bowl shape. This was an OMG experience for me to view this perspective of the glacial action.

Here is the summit of Clouds Rest. Glacier Point where I work and live is in the background.

Yahoo! I made it!

Here I am on the summit of Clouds Rest looking back at the trail head on the side of Tenaya Lake. It seems like a very long ways away.

Half Dome from Clouds Rest. Look closely and you can see hikers going up the cables to the summit.

Vogelsang Hike

Here it is...Vogelsang...my destination.

Vogelsang Lake.

Vogelsang Lake from near the Vogelsang Pass.

Mount Florence from Vogelsang Pass.

Mount Florence, Mount McClure and Mount Lylle from Vogelsang Pass.

Fletcher Peak and Fletcher Lake.

Vogelsang High Sierra Camp.

Fletcher Peak.

Evelyn Lake. This is where I camped for the night.

My camp.

Sunrise in the alpine sierra high country.

Yosemitescapes

Half Dome from Olmsted Point at sunset.

Clouds Rest from Olmsted Point at sunset.

Mount Hoffmann from Clouds Rest trail at sunrise.

The alpine high sierra at sunrise.

High Sierra tundra at Ireland Lake.

In the high country, don't forget to look up. Even the sky is interesting here.

Glacial Evidences

This is an eratic field. An eratic is a rock that was picked up and carried by a glacier. When the glacier melted, the rocks were gently lowered to the mountain surface below as is pictured here.

This is an interesting eratic. It was dropped on the top of this ridge and it is very out of place.

As the glacier moves over the bed rock it polishes the rock from it's extreme weight plus the surface of the glacier is like sandpaper from all of the rock and debris it collects along the journey. This image illustrates glacier polish and an eratic that was dropped on top of the polish. Interesting.

Another polish and eratic example.

As the glacier moves, it conforms to the rock surface under it as illustrated in this photo.

Mt. Dana Hike

Here is an early morning photo of the task ahead of me. Mount Dana. 13,054 feet. I am starting at 10,000 feet.

Belding's Ground Squirrel

Pika

These guys are in trouble. They require cool temps to survive. As the Earth warms they are pushed higher and higher in elevation. This Pika couple was at 12,500 feet. The mountain is only 13,000. I guess they look up and say "Oh boy". This speces may not last much longer. They also have to go down to gather grasses. The more they travel, the greater the risk being caught by preditors.

Well, there it is, but it keeps going and going and going...

I finally made it. It was awesome. Only 47 feet below the highest point in Yosemite. Mount Dana summit. 13,054 feet. Yahoo! I love it. The reward is amazing. This is the closest I will be to an Eagle.

13,054 feet.

I desended as quickly as possible because this was all I could think about. I made a bee line for Bodie Mikes BBQ to get a Garden Burger and iced tea.

Oh yeah, and this.

It's OK. I burned 5,000 calories today.

My Ranger Duties

I have started to intigrate Miwok lectures into my naturalist hikes. I will soon do a complete post on Miwok information.

This is my friend Julia Parker, a local Miwok who works at the Yosemite Museum. I have learned a lot from her.

One of my duties is bear management. I am not a formal bear manager, but in Glacier Point we are quite remote so we Rangers are called upon to do more then most Rangers because we are out here alone. This is the same bear that took down a deer about 50 feet from me. Read that story here. On this day she and her two cubs entered a heavily human populated Glacier Point area. She approached a man and his dog. The man picked up his dog in his arms, the dogs food and his food and ran to me to tell me of the bear. I approached the bear and ran her and her two cubs up into the mountains away from people. This was a very important moment for the cubs. It was my goal to adverse condition the cubs so they will be afraid of me and this place.

Things didn't go so well for the owner of this truck. The bear easily broke in. She bit into a cold gel-pack, dropped it and quit. No food was acquired. Yahoo!

This plane flew about 2,000 feet above the valley floor and 1,000 feet below the valley rim. A visitor shot this picture and sent it to me. I thought he was on a suicide run because he was flying directly for Half Dome. He turned right just at the last second.

I love Italy.