The fish that I am referring to was mentioned briefly in "The Merced Sun-Star" and was believed to be a solitary find. I also heard a rumor of a small alligator in a Chowchilla area slough, but I was never able to confirm that one.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Bad, but not near as bad as the piranha variant that was found in a creek near Merced a number of years ago.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I am impressed with the red-tailed hawk, but I had a big tomcat years ago who wasn't. I came home from work and saw my cat being dive-bombed by a red-tailed hawk and I figured the cat had met his match. Twenty-four hours later, I drove on my property and the cat was strutting around a half-eaten red-tailed hawk, with his tail straight in the air. The cat went on to survive 6 years of rural livby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Keep up the good work; I enjoy your brand of insanity.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Knowing the people involved, I imagine the entire system was in full compliance with current regulations and I believe the aforementioned pump was probably replaced about 1974-75. One of your former Superintendents was a GS-7 in Pinnacles at the time.by Dearborn - General Discussion
I wonder if the upgrade in status will prompt a modernization of the dirt road that connects the east and west portions of the park on the north. When I did some volunteer work there in the early 70's, the NPS was still using a hand-cranked gasoline system that pumped from an underground tank to a measured glass device on the top. When you had pumped a sufficient amount, you opened a valve andby Dearborn - General Discussion
This thread has brought back a lot of fine memories from the early 70's. At sundown every evening, the fire lookout people would announce by radio that they were going off the air and then they would talk to one another about the sunset, flowers, etc. Donna was on Devils Peak overlooking Wawona, Harry and Geneva were at Henness Ridge and Juanita was on North Mountain. I met Donna, Harry and Geby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
If I recall correctly, the Curry Village ice rink dates from the late 60's/early 70's. Prior to that, the Curry Village parking lot was closed off, flooded with a fire hose and allowed to freeze. I'm just grasping at hearsay, but I believe the Wawona Grove parking lot used to be a campground. For parking, there used to be a Camp Hoyle development (including a gas station) located between Wawonby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Harrumph! And some doubted my word when I said that I saw Half Dome from the second story library building at Cal State Stanislaus in 1971. Friends who grew up in Turlock were accustomed to occasional views of Half Dome - before the air quality diminished.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I've been familiar with the Storegga event in the North Sea of some 8,000 years ago for some time and this portends to be a significant repeat.by Dearborn - General Discussion
QuoteAnotherDave .19/gallon? I recall June, 1969 - $0.24/gallon in Merced and $0.36/gallon in Yosemite Valley. At the time, there was a large service station at the base of the Yosemite Falls Trail, a smaller service station at the back of the Village store and a third service station at Curry Village (Camp Curry then), but I don't believe it was open.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
In recent years, I have not had the luxury of keeping up on developments in Yosemite - except through this fine forum. In respect of a Glacier Point water supply, however, I remember only too well a large metal water tank that was installed in the old - now defunct, I believe - Glacier Point Campground in 1971. The tank was located uphill and probably to the west of the Glacier Point ranger resby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I should have commented on this a bit earlier. I used to work with a man whose family has been in Yosemite for 5-6 generations since 1855. His grandfather and great-grandfather drove stagecoaches for the Washburn family and his grandfather was robbed at least once. The grandfather successfully hid a bag of money from the stage robber and there are two versions as to who owned the money. I belby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
In 1969, my Camp 1 neighbor and work partner Jack Kirk told me of a blacksmith shop that was located at the intersection of the Coulterville Road and the Arch Rock Road. I snooped around in the rock overhang and found charcoal, portions of rock-boring star drills and other garbage. Quite a bit of history around the Cascade area.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I applaud the work being done on finding the Big Oak Flat horse trail and subsequent telegraph line. I wanted to do that work in 1971, but did not have the opportunity. By coincidence, I met a retired forest ranger several months ago who spoke of using that same type of insulator in his career because when a tree invariably fell, the wire would often slide through the insulator instead of breakby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Quotetomdisco Just knowing there is a place on the planet I will never stop wanting to go back to, ever. That alone brings me comfort. For me, that is the understatement of the year, although I have not been in my beloved Yosemite for a number of years. As for cold water, I always thought that Yosemite had the coldest water imaginable - until I moved to Yellowstone. One day at Bridge Bay Marby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Quoteeeek Quotehotrod4x5Do they empty the tanks each winter? That has been asked before. So far I haven't seen an answer. From past experience in Yellowstone, it is considered more desirable to fill them before winter to keep the empty - and buoyant - tanks from rising from the ground with frost upheaval, water table, etc. In 1975, the Yellowstone concessionaire tried to sell gasoline at theby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Quoteplawrence QuoteDearborn Besides, would the NPS have to move the "Kowski College" back to Yosemite Village? How many will know what that question refers to? I think you are referring to "Kowski Kollege" now known as the Horace M. Albright Training Center. I doubt that it would ever move back to Yosemite Village. If it ever moved back to California, I would thinkby Dearborn - General Discussion
I believe a former Yosemite Superintendent caused the diversion of more water to Mono Lake in the past. I can only hope that someone can duplicate his efforts to take care of the dust with some water that would otherwise go to LA. Pardon my opinion, but LA needs to look at desalinzation.by Dearborn - General Discussion
Quoteeeek QuotebalzaccomIt is amazing how many bad ideas seem to be originating in Arizona these days... Indeed. They seem to be totally hatstand lately. Actually, I believe I smell an intriguing rodent on this one. I don't believe Arizona actually wants - or is prepared to handle - the enormity of the South Rim congestion and inner canyon rescues. When Congress did not pass a budget underby Dearborn - General Discussion
In 1969 and 1970, I lived in Camp #1 for NPS employees (where the SAR cache is now, the old jail). We had so many raccoon visitors that I thumb-tacked the sides of the tent to keep them from crawling in at night. Then my mother assured me that she had read in the guidebooks that Yosemite did NOT have any raccoons and they had to be a figment of my imagination. That was a standing joke with usby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I think of that fatal Yosemite deer encounter often; Cody, Wyoming has a minimum of 300 resident deer in the city limits, and many otherwise functional people think they're cute. I know their potential and keep my distance.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
Who is to say what will remain with the passage of time? As you drive from Bridalveil Meadows to Bridalveil Falls, there is a 3-4' high rock in the trees on the left side. I believe the rock marks the spot where two prospectors were killed in 1852. If I recall my thesis research of some 40 years ago, there used to be a metal memorial plaque on that rock but it was removed about 1926. To the eby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
In the aftermath of the 1969 fire that destroyed the Glacier Point Hotel, I was aware of hotel debris being placed in a dump in the general area that you indicated, but I thought that had been cleaned up in the 1990s. I wonder if you have found an older dump. I also stumbled over an extensive dump in the meadow on the north side of "swinging bridge" in 1969. At the time, I had the beby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I have another image of the original swinging bridge and I believe it was located within about 25 feet of the current bridge. I also recall the north bridge foundation laying on the riverbank when I worked in NPS campground maintenance in 1969. As romantic as the original bridge might have been, I vividly recall people rocking the bridge up and down to frighten the scaredy-cats (like me) who weby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
When I worked/lived in Wawona, mice were an everyday fact of life and we just tried to keep food scraps away from them. Hantavirus was not known at the time, or we would have been some paranoid people. When I moved to Yellowstone, they were far worse and one of my first tool purchases was tin snips so I could block their entrance routes with parts of tin cans. I even heard them chewing the insby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
So far as you can, I would ask that you document your knowledge of the topic and its sources and preserve the information. I've done some modest research on Savage and I've found some divergence of fact. I also researched his killer - Major Harvey - and he appears to have been a man with lofty ambitions. Expelled from West Point for escessive demerits and later claimed to be a mining engineerby Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I worked entrance stations at the South Entrance of Yosemite and the East Entrance of Yellowstone; the most common question is, "Where's the best place to go?" In Yellowstone, that was followed by, "Wheah are da beahs?" The good news on weather is that we're receiving monsoonal moisture in the northern Rockies that is helping the fire index.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion
I have not checked in a number of years, but active duty military personnel on travel orders were permitted free entry to parks for years. Prior to 07-20-1975, foreign citizens were permitted free entry to NPS areas as well.by Dearborn - General Discussion
RIP, Mrs. Rhoan. I worked with Patrick in Wawona over 40 years ago.by Dearborn - Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. News & Discussion