After yesterday, we were ready for an easy morning. We also needed to recharge every battery we own. Because we were gone all day and didn't get back to camp until after dark, we couldn't run the generator. Our solar batteries were very low, so we didn't feel like we could recharge any of our cameras or electronics either. We fired up the generator and recharged all of our electronics. We even had a "gourmet" lunch of beef burritos, since our microwave was now available.
By mid-afternoon we had all our batteries re-charged; including our own levels of energy. I needed to send an email, so we drove down to the Valley and were immediately confronted with the hordes of tourists. Summer was on at Yosemite. We managed to find a parking place to shoot across the meadow at Yosemite Falls. Although the falls was only a small percentage of what it was last month, it was still a nice shot. The greens of the meadow, the darker greens of the cottonwoods, and the blue sky always make a good image. I've shot here on every trip since the early 70's, and I never get tired of it.
We decided to shoot Half Dome from Cooks Meadow and noticed lots of people milling around the edge of the meadow.
They had seen a young bear. I saw some movement and walked ahead to see if I could get a clear shot at it.
I was limited to a couple of quick glimpses, but a ranger told us it was a yearling who was now living in the meadows
that run the length of Yosemite Valley. He was tagged and had a radio transmitter, so they could keep track of him.
As long as he stays out of traffic, they plan to leave him alone. We kept walking around the fringe of the meadow,
but he had disappeared.
In the early evening, we ran into our bear again. We were walking back to the Explorer when we saw the bear at the edge
of the meadow.
He had found an old rotting log and was busy tearing it apart to eat the grubs. He wasn't very big,
but he was intent on eating. He paid no attention to the crowd that gathered to watch. After shooting still images of the bear,
I decided to create a video of the bear. He sensed his chance for immortality and took his efforts to the next level.
He jumped on top of the log, dug his claws in, and then jumped back down using his weight to rip out a huge chunk. He was into it!
We followed the bear at a discreet distance (good to have the 400 mm lens) as he found two other downed logs and then climbed
an apple tree. If you look carefully at the image to the left, you can see he's chomping on an apple. He was very entertaining.
I hope people give him his space so the rangers can allow him to stay in the meadows. It's great seeing bears
"bear things" rather than reacting to people and turning into nuisance bears who break into cars or steal food.
By the time the bear wandered off, it was sunset. Since we were right there, we walked over to Sentinel Bridge
to shoot Half Dome over the river. As we walked over, Carol was concerned about finding a good place to stand
on the bridge.
We were shocked to find ourselves alone on the bridge in prime time. There was a huge amount
of contrast between the bright sky and the shadows along the river, so we're depending on the HDR images
to be the "keepers." Regardless of how the photos turn out, it was a beautiful scene.
One of the amazing things about Yosemite is that I never get tired of seeing these special places.
I've crossed this bridge hundreds of times through the years, but it never loses its interest.
It draws me back every time.
Our final stop was to shoot the stars from Tunnel View. It was already getting dark when we arrived, so we had only a short wait before we could start shooting. The climber's lights on El Capitan immediately caught our attention. There were two climbers just starting out while at least one other group of climbers was nearly at the top. While we were shooting, the climbers at the very top either shut their lights down for the night or managed to reach the top and disappeared from sight. We saw a few shooting stars as you can see in the image below, but most of the objects crossing the skies were airliners heading for the West Coast.
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