BajaNomad - Yosemite Valley Weekend

Yosemite Valley Weekend

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 01:08 AM

El Cap is always the first arresting image.

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 01:10 AM

Cascading water.

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 01:12 AM

Along the Merced...

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 01:14 AM

This one's for Pompano.

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 01:16 AM

At the foot of Half Dome.

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 01:17 AM

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 01:19 AM

Couldn't decide which one I liked more, so I'm posting both versions.

Ken Bondy - 11-27-2013 at 07:33 AM

Beautiful Igor!! Bravo!!

Ateo - 11-27-2013 at 07:53 AM

:bounce:

David K - 11-27-2013 at 09:16 AM

Excellent photography!

Pompano - 11-27-2013 at 09:24 AM

Gracias and dekuji, Igor .. Beautiful images of a great park. They are all favorites...especially the muley, of course.

Like you, I too, have had the good fortune to have visited Yosemite Park often and have always marveled at it's diverse habitats and variety of wildlife species. It's becoming very rare to find that anymore in the lower 48. Thankfully, we've had concerned people like John Muir, presidents Harrison, Teddy Roosevelt and others who felt nature should be protected and preserved for all time by creating many national parks like Yosemite. I have a cottage near a remote Provincial Park in northern Canada and my annual migrations south take me through Waterton Natl. Lakes Park, Canada, Glacier Natl Park, Montana and often through Yellowstone Natl. Park in Wyoming...always inspiring.

Yosemite offers it's lush chaparral to the conifer forests to the massive alpine rock....all great for the camera, which you have shown so well.

Appreciate the deer photo dedication. That young mule deer buck shows very well and is in obvious good health. He's also quite a ham for your camera. By way of thanks, here's a photo of another deer this last spring, but a little more camera-shy and doing it's best to hide from my lens. However, I 'spotted' him.

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 09:44 AM

Thank you for the compliments (or is it complements).

I have to tell you about the deer. After walking to Mirror Lake, which is empty, I was really tired and fell asleep in the meadow. When I awoke there were deer virtually right next to me, a herd of maybe 12 does and 2 bucks. It took that picture of the buck with a 105mm lens, which is just a bit stronger than a portrait lens. He looked pretty calm but I knew what he could do with those horns if he chose to. He later got up and started to rake his anters across those willows to the right. This must have gone on for 15 minutes. He stripped most of the bark off the plant. I tried to imagine how good it must have felt to scratch his head like that but it was done with such force that I'm surprised he didn't rub his skin right off.

It felt good this see it this way rather than the discovery channel.

PS I had a hard time finding the deer in your image until I realized it was so close. Amazing how well they hide.

Pompano - 11-27-2013 at 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Skipjack Joe
Thank you for the compliments (or is it complements).

I have to tell you about the deer. After walking to Mirror Lake, which is empty, I was really tired and fell asleep in the meadow. When I awoke there were deer virtually right next to me, a herd of maybe 12 does and 2 bucks. It took that picture of the buck with a 105mm lens, which is just a bit stronger than a portrait lens. He looked pretty calm but I knew what he could do with those horns if he chose to. He later got up and started to rake his anters across those willows to the right. This must have gone on for 15 minutes. He stripped most of the bark off the plant. I tried to imagine how good it must have felt to scratch his head like that but it was done with such force that I'm surprised he didn't rub his skin right off.

It felt good this see it this way rather than the discovery channel.

PS I had a hard time finding the deer in your image until I realized it was so close. Amazing how well they hide.

It's early, Igor and you are allowed some spelling errers...(note the complimentary error...hah!)

You know you have to very careful when approaching or meeting horned guys like deer, moose, and elk during the fall...rutting times! Lots of unfortunate folks are gored and/or killed every year by wildlife in rut. Todays use of handy point/shoot cameras, cellphone videos, etc have created plenty of U-tube movies of attacks. As I know you know....they're not at all like pacifist Bambis in a Walt Disney film.

I once had a similar incident while goose-hunting in Far North Canada...a very remote place and I was all alone. This happened in a wheat stubble field adjacent to meadows and a forest. An hour before dawn, I had placed my full-body decoy spread, put up my willow branch blind, and settled in to await the first flight of geese.

I realized I had left my coffee thermos back in the pickup I had hidden in the trees...about 100 yards away....so I went to retrieve it. It was now 'false dawn' and enough light to see this sight. As I turned back towards my decoy spread, I saw a huge whitetail buck slowly advancing on the very life-like honker decoys in my set...(Bigfoot Honker decoys, full body and almost more real looking than real honkers.)

The sight was amazing...that buck was sneaking in on the those decoys...nose to the ground...circling to get their scent in the little morning breeze. Obviously the buck saw my decoys as a threat to him. This big boy circled closer and closer in a threatening way...scraping the stubble with it's hooves, shaking his horns, and snuffing loudly. I was in awe....and I cursed myself for leaving my Nikon in the blind. WHAT A SIGHT!...and me without my handy camera.

I suddenly thought....Hey, those deeks are kinda expensive and I don't want any horn punctures in them. So I decided to surprise that buck and yelled out...."Watch those deeks, guy!"

That stopped the action dead in it's tracks...and as the buck turned towards me, I made dang sure the pickup door was open. I didn't need to turn tail, though, as the buck bounded off into the nearby woods and disappeared.

I finished out the morning in my goose blind...but always kept a load of buckshot in the lower barrel of my I/U..and kept an eye on those woods!

Never, never leave your camera when going for coffee.

Sorry for the deer story detour...Now back to your photo trip to Yosemite.

Skipjack Joe - 11-27-2013 at 11:02 AM

No problem. Deer are part of a yosemite experience. There aren't many posts on this thread anyway.

I was debating whether to include pic #2 in the series because it's really not very good. But you get attached to images because of what you saw and not what you took. Here's why.

I scrambled up all those rocks to the base of yosemite falls to see if it was still the same. Tripod shmypod, I wasn't gonna carry that with me. The rocks were real smooth, smooth enough to send me sprawling. When I got up there it was just as I had remembered it 30 yrs ago. I could see the rock from which I had taken the images of the plunge pool. I found this humungous flat rock at the base of the falls. It was perfect to lay on it looking straight up and pretend that all the water was coming right down on me. I shot a bunch of images on my back. And eventually fell into this blissful sleep. By the time I woke the shadows had moved across the rock and were now over me. That was my clue to get up. When I got to the viewing bridge below there was a crowd of people who never knew there had been someone up there asleep.

Pompano - 11-27-2013 at 11:06 AM

Igor...alias 'Rip Van Winkle'

DianaT - 11-27-2013 at 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Skipjack Joe
No problem. Deer are part of a yosemite experience. There aren't many posts on this thread anyway.

I was debating whether to include pic #2 in the series because it's really not very good. But you get attached to images because of what you saw and not what you took. Here's why.

I scrambled up all those rocks to the base of yosemite falls to see if it was still the same. Tripod shmypod, I wasn't gonna carry that with me. The rocks were real smooth, smooth enough to send me sprawling. When I got up there it was just as I had remembered it 30 yrs ago. I could see the rock from which I had taken the images of the plunge pool. I found this humungous flat rock at the base of the falls. It was perfect to lay on it looking straight up and pretend that all the water was coming right down on me. I shot a bunch of images on my back. And eventually fell into this blissful sleep. By the time I woke the shadows had moved across the rock and were now over me. That was my clue to get up. When I got to the viewing bridge below there was a crowd of people who never knew there had been someone up there asleep.

Very nice images and a great story! Thanks for both

Bubba - 11-30-2013 at 02:21 PM

Stunning pictures, Thank you!

woody with a view - 11-30-2013 at 02:23 PM

second one is better!

MMc - 11-30-2013 at 02:42 PM

Skipjack thanks for the photos. I spent a bunch of nights looking a El Cap meadow from El Cap. I love that stone. It is a high stone that has a short approach a rock climber dream.

Skipjack Joe - 11-30-2013 at 07:02 PM

Are you a rock climber, MMc?

MMc - 11-30-2013 at 10:19 PM

About 30# ago. Started up the Cap't.7 times got to to top on 5 of them. Did most of the bigs in my 20's/30's. loved Yoesmite would go there for a three day weekend and do a wall :tumble:

missed some work cause of a stuff getting in the way of the top.
I remember a 20 hour day followed by a trip home a going to work straight off. Fun times...

Skipjack Joe - 11-30-2013 at 11:02 PM

What are considered some of the bigs? I know little about rock climbing. I suppose climbing Mt Denali would not qualify. I saw a climber on the face of some granite just up the valley from the Awhanee hotel. He was a yellow dot on a wall that we glimpsed through an opening of the pine trees.

You say you did all your climbing in your 20-30's. Is that because guys get heavier after that and their arm strength gets weaker? I noticed that I couldn't do pullups nearly as well when I reached my 30's.

[Edited on 12-1-2013 by Skipjack Joe]