Re: View of Half Dome from Patterson/I-5

I will be driving to San Francisco next Friday morning, returning Sunday.
If it is a clear day, I would like to see if I can see the Half Dome view from the Patterson area.
Can I see it at an exit near I-5 near Patterson?

Yes but you will need about a 20X plus scope. And a good tripod.

---

Old Dude

I was going to channel my wifes eyes. She can find anything.

Is there a certain turn-off/road that I can see it from?

snorkus,

Are you aware that you have revived a triple thread discussion that comprised 1,319 posts? LOL

Jim

Quote
tomdisco
snorkus,

Are you aware that you have revived a triple thread discussion that comprised 1,319 posts? LOL

Jim

LOL

I tried a few months back but the haze in the area was too much, could barely see an outline of the sierra

I had read that other thread of over a thousand replies. I just wanted to know where I could see it.

Quote
snorkus
I had read that other thread of over a thousand replies. I just wanted to know where I could see it.

I would wait until a really hard frost/snowstorm. You're talking Jan/Feb/Mar. Something to look forward to. I went to Turlock in May and tried to see something but the haze was terrible.

Look who started that thread:

http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?1,7686,7686#msg-7686

Quote
eeek
Look who started that thread:

http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?1,7686,7686#msg-7686

Started it!!


(I think that the skies are too hazy to see the Dome this time of year)

The difficulty I have with the whole thing is that Half Dome is not that high, and you don't even get a view from closer in as you're driving up from the central valley. Why isn't there a partial obstruction of the dome in the shot?

I am neither a geographical expert, nor a physics expert, nor a camera expert - but are there lenses that bend the curvature of the Earth flatter so you get a clear shot of something from that far away, when there are ridges and canyons and other large geographical features in between? My head, which has hiked up many a false summit over ridges, does not want to accept that photo. As I continue reading the thread at Whitney Portal I find I am not alone.

Not looking for answers - just not sure I can believe that even a telescopic lens on a powerful camera could get that shot.

Almost,
I've been to the exact spot where the picture was taken and met with the guy that took it. I have video of the zoom that starts with the Sierras barely visible up through the 24X where you can see Half Dome and El Cap. The famous or infamous still is the real deal.


Here are some frames from the video. Bear in mind that the resolution of video is nowhere near as high as the still camera that was used for the original still.
http://yosemitephotos.net/main.php/v/mrcondron/?g2_page=4

Oh, and by the way it was rather hazy the day I shot the video. Actually I was there two days. The first day it was cloudy in Yosemite and nothing could be seen. The second day Half Dome could be seen even through the haze.

---

Old Dude



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2009 06:58PM by mrcondron.

A couple ways to think about this. One way is to picture yourself standing in Lone Pine. Lone Pine Peak is quite clearly taller than Mount Whitney. So it appears.

The other thing to think about is how is it possible the setting sun, which is at the horizon many miles west of Patterson, can illuminate Horsetail Fall and create the firefall each Feb?

Between Patterson and Half Dome there are no peaks higher than Half Dome. Here's a little graphic I did in paint. Crude but effective.
It is a possibility. But like you, I'll believe it when I see it for myself.

Good stuff, Mike.

I was doing some button punching on the calculator and measuring stuff in Google Earth. Patterson and Half Dome are about 90 miles apart and the elevation difference is 8700 feet, give or take. That comes out to be a little over one degree angle from valley floor to the top of the dome, a very tiny angle equal to about how far the sun moves in the sky in about four minutes. So you'd need 20x telephoto at least (equal to about 1000mm telephoto in SLR 35mm terms) to multiply that angle to what you see in the photos. No reason to think it isn't possible to see Half Dome from the central valley.

I contributed several posts to the original thread, and one thing I wish to emphasize is that when I saw Half Dome from Cal State Stanislaus in Turlock in March, 1971, we were experiencing unusually cold Arctic air and high winds that produced phenomenal visibility. I have now lived on the east side of Yellowstone for almost 35 years, but it seems to me that you don't see weather like that very often. We have great visibility up here on many occasions, but we also have lots of wind and a lot more "Alberta Clippers" (a very cold air mass) than you do.

At the time of the original post, I mentioned your Half Dome post to several lifelong Turlock area residents, and they took the whole thing in stride - they've been observing Half Dome off and on all of their lives. They thought everyone knew you could see Half Dome from Turlock...

Great place to live up here, but I still miss Yosemite!

I'll probably be keeping my eyes open for a day when the air is really clear and then try to post some zoom clips to utube or whatever that video site is.

---

Old Dude

Just stopped at the Suhr exit on the 5 freeway through the haze and clouds I can see Halfdome.