Mount Florence was named for Florence Hutchings. You can see it from Glacier Point and Sentinel Dome. It's in the east, near Lyell and McClure.by DougParr - General Discussion
It's hard to predict what a bear will do. There are lot's of ifs involved. If a bear is out at that time of day, and in that place, it WILL smell you food. If it likes the smell of your food, and if it's hungry, it may very well open your trunk and take the food. If a bear does that , nobody is going to stop it. If a bear rips your trunk apart, the ranger may decide to euthanize it. I wouldn't lby DougParr - General Discussion
Before 1961, Tioga Road was a one-lane mining road oiled to keep down the dust. It was steep and winding. The Park had an excellent law: You could only pull a trailer over that road late at night and in the wee hours of the morning. Trailers were the motor homes of those days. Like most RV drivers today, most trailer pullers had no idea how to pull over and let people pass. So the road wasn't thaby DougParr - General Discussion
Dear friends, in 60 years of camping, climbing, and packing in the wilderness I have never encountered alien spacecraft. Marauding marmots, yes, but never alien spacecraft. Norman Clyde wandered into my camp one evening at chow time. He was sort of an alien, certainly a stranger among men. I treated him with hospitality and deference and coaxed several hours of good stories out of him. The guyby DougParr - General Discussion
Benson Lake is a beauty. When the water is smooth, you can see domes across the lake reflected in it. Not much to do there but swim and lie on the sandy beach. Mules wear cow bells because (1) they need to eat and (2) the packer needs to find them. The mules can't carry their own food, so they have to graze. You can't graze a whole string of mules on the end of a rope, so you have to turn them lby DougParr - General Discussion
The hole used to be right up against the backside of that large flake. There was no railing to keep you out. I think the granite plug is touching the slab, and at the edge of the bush in the photo. Exfoliation continues. Some day, that giant slab will fall into the pool below. On the day that happens, it will be like the day the slab fell off of glacier point. When the big slab goes, all the othby DougParr - General Discussion
That's great, eeek. Thanks! That place looks downright scary to me. Wonder why I ever went in there.by DougParr - General Discussion
Nuts. The URL in the message above doesn't work. Here's how to get the photograph. Go to the USGS photo library at: http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/ Click Key Word Search. Type Vernal as Key Word 1. Type Matthes as Key Word 2. Type 61 as Key Word 3. Click Submit. There's the photo.by DougParr - General Discussion
Here is a photograph of the Vernal Fall precipice taken in 1913 by the pioneering Yosemite geologist Francois Matthes. http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/show_picture.cgi?ID=ID. Matthes, F.E. 61 Matthes was studying the exfoliation of granite and its contribution to the formation of Yosemite Valley. In this photo, you can see an enormous flake of granite in the process of exfoliation. Smby DougParr - General Discussion
One of those cars was made in the early 1950s. Men seldom wore patterned T-Shirts as outerwear before the early-to-mid 1950s. So the picture probably comes from the early-to-mid 1950s.by DougParr - General Discussion
Let's see. "The driver was reportedly attempting to pass several cars on a wet and sandy bend in the road when the accident occurred." Wet? Sandy? Bend? Several cars? That was not an accident. That was a totally stupid, foolhardy, irresponsible action. Even worse because of children in the car. Thanks to all those rescue personnel who risked their lives for those children!by DougParr - General Discussion
Y P W wrote: "You know, I've never been in a situation where I thought a gun would be helpful." I'm quite glad for your good fortune, Y P W. In 1972, I knapsacked to Snag Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park with my brother-in-law. We enjoyed the area for a few days, and were relaxing one night at our small campfire. A man walked into our camp and blew our fire out with a shotgun blby DougParr - General Discussion
A long time ago, I drove an MGA, a convertible sports car. It didn't have roll-up windows, but used removable plastic windows called side curtains. The doors didn't have handles. To open a door, you reached inside the hollow door and pulled a stout, rubber-coated wire. In 1968, I drove to Yosemite with a friend. After a week in Yosemite Valley, we went to Tuolumne Meadows. It had rained along thby DougParr - General Discussion
At the site of the present "Swinging Bridge," there was a suspension bridge a long time ago. I have a picture of me sitting on that bridge in 1946, so the thing was there before that time. I crossed that bridge and played on it into the 1960s. I'm not sure when it was destroyed. Before that bridge, there was another suspension bridge. My father took photos of it in the 1920s. There mayby DougParr - General Discussion
John Salathe and Anton Nelson were the first two people to climb the great face of Half Dome, in 1946. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Salathe But they did not free climb. Salathe, Nelson, Harding, Robbins, and other pioneers used ropes. Salathe invented the modern hard piton. I'm sure they used those too.by DougParr - General Discussion
Strix, Thank you for this information. I first saw that abandoned trail around 1957. I showed it to my Dad, who had been going up there for 40 years. He had never seen the trail before. I went up the trail until I grew afraid of encountering a rattlesnake, and went back. I kept seeing that old trail for another 40 years, but never went up it again. Since then, I have wondered what that trail waby DougParr - Backpacking and Hiking Yosemite and the Sierra