So today started off early (in California time, late on East coast) at 6am so that we could be at the Ansel Adams gallery in Yosemite valley a bit before 8:30am. It had taken us an hour to get to the house from the visitors center the day before but we forgot to add in the fact that downhill goes faster so we arrived almost 45 minutes early for our photo walk. We grabbed a cup of coffee at the little cafe at the visitors center and waited with the 11 other folks for the walk to start.
Reflections of Yosemite
We were led by one of the park photographers on an hour and a half mini-class. He explained aperture and shutter speed as well as ISO and how that affects your photos. We had a pretty diverse group both geographically and in terms of photography experience. There was a couple from the UK who had lots of nice equipment (the husband kindly offered to let me borrow an extra tripod when we were taking long-exposure shots), a few ladies from Minnesota with point and shoots, a lady from New Zealand with what appeared to be the same amount of equipment/experience as us except she had brought a tripod, and a few other folks with point-and-shoots. In hindsight, I wish we had stopped by the Swem Media Center at William & Mary and rented monopods to use for the trip, oh well, note for next time.
Our first stop after our camera “orientation” was to shoot an elm tree in one of the valley meadows in the morning sun. This was the first time in a long time that I had actually shot full manual, and I realized how much I do miss it. Shooting manual makes you really stop and take a bit more time to compose your shot, and playing with F-stops and histograms to adjust the light (even when your light meter says it’s “right”). We walked by the Merced river to shoot reflections of the huge granite formations next, and finished with some shots of Half Dome before heading back towards the visitors center and concluding the tour.
We walked around the gift shop and Adams Gallery for a bit then hopped on the (free!) hybrid shuttle bus that runs around the valley and went to the stables to see if there were any spots open for a horseback ride the next morning, and we were in luck! So tomorrow at 9am (we need to arrive at 8) we will be doing a 2 hour horseback tour of the park (Mom has always want to do this and I am super excited too 🙂 ). After making the reservations we got back on the shuttle and headed back to the main parking area. We decided earlier in the morning we would visit the Mariposa Grove in the afternoon so we stopped at a picnic area along the way to enjoy our peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches and then (after a bit of driving around to secure a parking spot) got on another shuttle up to the grove.
See those tiny colored dots on the road at the bottom center of the photo? That's my parents and Jeremy, these trees are HUGE!
The initial plan had been (based on the guidebooks we had) to ride a open air tram up to the upper grove, then to walk down and see all of the famous trees. Unfortunately the tram did not go just one way, and it was $26 per person, so we decided to walk. The lower grove (about a 1.5 mile hike) had a few famous trees, but the upper grove (an additional 2.5 mile hike) showcased some of the larger and more unique trees so once we got to the top of the lower grove we decided we were in good enough shape to visit the upper grove as well. There was quite a bit of uphill on the way to the little museum at the top of the upper grove but we made it, saw everything we wanted to, and were back down to the parking lot by 5pm.
The giant sequoias here are just unbelievably huge, it’s hard to really fathom how large they are until you standing next to them and realizing you could stretch your arms wide around the tree and not even go a tenth of the way around it. It’s amazing how these trees survive, and thrive, from the forest fires that occur every few years. The burned trunks create beautiful patterns and sometimes the fires hollow out entire trees, yet the trees are still alive (like the Telescope Tree). These guys are very resilient, and they aren’t even considered “mature” until they are 800 years old, some of the trees we saw were over 3000, amazing.
After hiking the grove we were all pretty famished and ready to head back to the house so we did just that. We cooked marinated pork chops on the grill with oven roasted potatoes and acorn squash, all the while enjoying a spectacular sunset view from our deck. So now it is quarter past 8 but since we are getting up early again I think we are all heading to bed early as well. Tomorrow we have the horseback ride in the morning then I think my folks will split up from Jeremy and I and we will do a short day hike somewhere while my parents visit the lodges and other shops in the valley, looking forward to all of it 🙂
