Yosemite National Park: Hetch Hetchy

6/26/2011

Sam and I hiked around Hetch Hetchy today, which is a reservoir that provides water for the San Francisco area.  Apparently it was quite a controversy when people decided that the Hetch Hetchy valley should be dammed, probably because it was part of Yosemite National Park.  Before the reservoir there were cliffs taller than El Capitan.

O'Shaughnessy Dam

Sam and I on the Dam; Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is behind us

Even with the reservoir, Hetch Hetchy is a beautiful place.  We went to look for salamanders and bears, but found neither.  There is one part of the trail that is a series of wooden foot bridges that go in front of Wapama Falls; because of all the snow melt the waterfall was falling on the footbridge instead of behind it, so we had to run across and get thoroughly soaked – it was pretty fun once you got used to it!

Sam and I on the flooded footbridge at Wapama Falls

It was a fine herping day.  At Hetch Hetchy we found a whiptail and a gartersnake (actually 4 garter snakes, but I only caught one, which musked all over me).  Back at Sam’s place we visited a stream nearby and found Pacific treefrogs (the ones that call at night!) and a western toad .  We weren’t even looking for the toad, but stumbled across it on our way back from the stream. 

Sierra Gartersnake Thamnophis couchii

California whiptail Cnemidophorus tigris mundus

Pacific tree frog Hyla regilla

Western toad Bufo boreas

All in all, another fine day.  Tomorrow I leave for my friend Mary’s place north of Sacramento.

Yosemite National Park: The Valley

6/25/2011

Sam and I started the day going to Groveland’s farmer’s market – a cute little market in the local plant nursery – where we ended up buying homemade bread and jam to eat for lunch later.  We then drove to Yosemite National Park – my first time there!  All of Sam’s field work is in Yosemite, so she knows the roads and landmarks pretty well and thus she is an excellent tour guide for a person like me.

Yosemite Valley is the main event at the park, where you can see El Capitan (a climber’s dream), Yosemite Falls (an amazing waterfall) and Half Dome (an amazing, giant, rock).  Thousands of people must visit there every day – there was a line of cars to get into the park, we had to drive around for a short while just to find a parking spot, and there were people and tents everywhere.  A popular event in Yosemite is to rent a bike and bike around to see everything, which is pretty ingenious.  Sam and I listened to a 15 minute talk about how Yosemite was first started, and of the families also listening to the talk two were from different countries (Greece and New Zealand) and everyone else were from different states.

El Capitan

Half Dome

Yosemite Falls

Sam and I hiked around a bit to see Yosemite Falls and El Capitan (~ 10 miles total!).  We did end up seeing a momma merganser and her 10 babies (very cute) and a weasel (my first one!) but no bears as of yet.  

Mergansers

"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"  

"Wuh, I think so, Brain, but if we didn't have ears, we'd look like weasels."

In closing, remember:

The Drive to Yosemite

6/24/2011

Left Phoenix around 6:30.  We had planned to leave at 5:30 but had a little snafu when I couldn’t find my debit card, so we went back to my sister’s place (said goodbye to her twice!) and went through everything I had brought into her place before finding it in my backpack. 

My mom is a lovely traveling companion.  We both wished we weren’t so much on a time schedule and could stop by and look at the places we were passing – Joshua Tree National Park, the Santa Anita Racetrack, the Rose Bowl, wineries, lakes.  We must have passed at least a dozen signs warning us to not run into construction workers, even though we only passed one group of construction workers in the 12 hour drive.  Mom wondered how much money California spent on those signs, warning people to not run into workers when there was no road construction in sight.

We arrived in Mercer around 6:50, which is where Mom would catch the bus and go back to Tucson.  I arrived in Groveland around 8:00 pm.  One of the roads that mapquest took me on was a backcountry road with no striping that winded around hills where cows grazed in fields around lakes.  Pretty cool.

My friend Sam lives in a “gated community” in Groveland where pretty much the entire community lives.  She shares a house with her birding partner, who is currently out of town.  The town is basically a one-road town, really cute, with pine trees and green vegetation all over the place.  At night frogs call, and I want to track one down.

Leaving For California

Today I spent the day volunteering for the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum - my last volunteer day for 3 months.  After volunteering (and saying goodbye to all my friends there!!) I went back to my place to pick up my mom and the last few things for my trip.  The hardest part was saying goodbye to my kitties - the only time so far I've cried about leaving Arizona.  Mom and I left for Phoenix, swung by my sister's vet clinic for a minute or so, and picked up some dinner from a near by Safeway.  We were only in Safeway for ~10 minutes, and when we came out, we realized that someone had stolen my Life is Good tire cover!?!  I've been driving around Tucson with that tire cover for almost a year now, and 10 minutes into Phoenix it gets stolen.  Yet another reason Tucson is better than Phoenix.

Regardless, Mom and I are spending the night at my sister's place tonight (and her very nice kitties!) and leaving super early tomorrow morning for Yosemite.

My Black Kitten Kimi

 

My Siameser Zipper