that weird green stuff

How cool is this?
As I explore my Yosemite astro-timelapses, I realize my Canon 5dM2 was picking up faint aurora borealis the whole time! (from @YosemiteSteve on twitter)

What an awesome treat, and it looks hard to have noticed in the moment.

the sky is falling

Here's some fascinating video from Yosemite Park, showing and discussing the process of rock falls:



Geologists discuss the rock falls, and their effect on park visitors, and there's some great video from a park visitor.

The video's a granite-lover's dream, with obligatory spectacular views of Yosemite as well.

I'm feeling less inclined to scramble in the talus looking for pikas than I might once have been.

Does the information in this video affect how you would use Yosemite, or whether you would visit the park or similar areas?

frazil ice in Yosemite National Park

Steven Bumgardner, who produces Yosemite Nature Notes for the National Park Service, shot some video of "frazil ice" on the Merced River in the park this week, as a cold early spring storm moved across California.



I'd never heard of frazil ice before. Now, because I must look things up compulsively, I'm learning about it. Wikipedia says, "Frazil ice is a collection of loose, randomly oriented needle-shaped ice crystals in water. It resembles slush...," which probably explains why I'm imagining margaritas. And Hajo Eicken at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, says

The word frazil means fine spicules or blobs, which gracefully describes the morphology of the crystal. Sea ice growth always begins with frazil ice production, the only true dendritic ice growth phase. Active convection aids sensible heat transport at the ocean surface, thereby super cooling the water and allowing dendritic growth of ice crystals.

This is so cool. Spicules and blobs. Scientific terminology rocks. ("Dendritic," of course, means it's like branches of a tree, like drainage in a river delta, or the shape of a neuron.)

The waterfalls of Yosemite must be delightful just now.

Yosemite is still one of my favorite places (and a foreign exchange student question)

Plenty of photographers have wallowed in the joy of Yosemite Valley. Nothing in this time-lapse video is, frame-by-frame, better than the best Yosemite photography, but the timelapsey goodness of the video is lovely:

Time Lapse Round One from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

Thanks to Backyard Zen for the heads-up.

Starting next week, I'll be taking an environmental writing course. I hope to edit some of my work there for this blog.

Also: Have any of you been foreign exchange students, and would be willing to talk to me about it for a post on this blog? Please let me know, if so, and pass this post and request on to anyone you know who might be interested.

Thanks. :D

Did I ever tell you I'm afraid of heights?

Fee-free days coming up in the national parks

Yosemite Valley
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

Many of the US National Parks charge some sort of fee to get in, either a nominal day-use fee, or in the case of big, popular, and over-used parks like Yosemite, a hefty $20 per car entry fee.

Just as California's state parks are on the verge of closing (and our governor is talking about "selling state property" including San Quentin, which makes me wonder a bit about other state land), the National Park Service is instituting a series of fee-free days in our national parks.

Now's the time to get out and visit.

When I was young, I thought Yosemite was overrated, by the way. Then I saw it, and can't imagine not having it.

For a listing of upcoming fee-free days, please check the NPS page about it.

(Pictures below are of Lassen and Yosemite, two of my favorite parks.)

Yosemite

Yosemite Valley
Originally uploaded by marymactavish.

Lynn Kendall says, about Ansel Adams' photos of Yosemite, and Yosemite itself:

Powerful as [the photos] are, they can't evoke the sublimity of the place. I'm damned sure that I can't, either. That's why I've taken more than a month to even begin to fumble my way toward a post about Yosemite.

I grew up in California, and always thought that Yosemite was an overpriced, overblown, overrated, crowded, hard-to-reach tourist attraction, not much else. I couldn't imagine what drew everyone there. I was sure Galen Rowell and Ansel Adams had photographed all there was to see, with skill that made it seem more than it was.

One morning in about 1993, my partner at the time and I woke up early for no real reason, a bit before dawn. There we lay, wide awake, and one of us -- I don't remember which -- said, "Hey, let's go to Yosemite!" So we jumped in the car and drove for a handful of hours, first on straight freeway, then on the winding "north entrance" highway up through Groveland, and we were there. It was February, and a warm day for the month. The air at Yosemite was perhaps in the 50s, with snow on the ground, but clear dry roads. The sky was bright blue. We got there at 8 am, and were among very few people in the park.

As you come in from the north, the initial view is almost startling. "Oh. This is what they mean." I was entranced. It was as if I was in a display, a dictionary definition of natural beauty. This is all real, these immense mile-high rocks, this exposed granite batholith. And that was the macro-park. I was also captivated by the tiny, the deep chocolate color and fuzzy caps of the goldcup oak trees, and the black oak leaf that lay on top of the snow and was warmed by the sun, sinking as the snow under it was melted, and sitting (when I found it) in the bottom of a six-inch-deep hole shaped exactly like a black oak leaf. But then the rocks, so big! They are there always. In the spring, some of the highest waterfalls in the world plunge down their faces. (At the top are emphatic warnings: If you go in the creek there, You Will Die.)



That day -- a pleasant weekday in February, few people, perfect weather -- was the best possible day for a visit to Yosemite. I've been there a handful of times since, sometimes with more people, sometimes fewer. I'm never let down. It is always amazing. It always makes me marvel at geology and geography, and the power of water (which, as ice, carved Yosemite into its present shape). It always makes me grateful for John Muir and his attempts to preserve it. I am always glad to live near enough to visit with relative ease.

You should go read Lynn's post about Yosemite, though. She says a lot more, and offers a lot more photos. :D

There are more great photos out there, including from Joe Decker, Buck Forester, David Morgan-Mar, pete@eastbaywilds, Denise Cicuto, and Sister Coyote. And I have a few more of my own.