June 19

Yosemite 2012

Tuesday, June 19

Our destination today was a return to Pothole Dome, but this time the goal was to climb to the top and take panoramas of the Tuolumne Meadows area. After yesterday's 7-mile hike and 1500 foot elevation gain, we were too tired to do anything in the morning. We relaxed around camp, grilled hamburgers for lunch, and then tried to beckon enough energy to do something for the afternoon.

I summoned enough energy to climb Pothole Dome, but Carol decided a good book, a great view of Tuolumne Meadows, and the comfortable seat of the Explorer was a better fit for her energy level. It took 30 minutes to climb to the top of the dome, but I eventually made it. The view is a 360-degree panorama and worth every bit of energy needed to reach the top. Normally, climbing Pothole Dome isn't a big deal, but my legs wanted nothing to do with more climbing after yesterday.

I shot from a couple different places along the top of the dome. The final spot provided a 270-degree panorama before the setting sun caused too much lens flare. The panoramas required so many images that my laptop ran out of RAM before it could create even a JPG version of the panoramas. I'll have to wait to see how they turn out after we get home and I build them on my desktop computer.

Pothole Dome Panorama

After a couple hours shooting on Pothole Dome, we drove to a small tarn we call "Dana Tarn." It's an unnamed small lake with reflections of Mt. Dana and Mt. Gibbs. We arrived just as the sunset light on the peaks started to fade, but we got a few quick shots. We were about 10 minutes too late for the best images.

We wanted one more try at getting star images in Yosemite, so we continued up the road to Tioga Pass. I wanted to try a time-lapse video of the star movements, and Carol wanted to try getting star trails. It seemed like hours before the stars started filling the sky. I don't know if the higher elevation or the open landscape made a difference, but we couldn't start shooting until 9:30 or 9:45. Down in the Valley, we were finishing up about then. Our most interesting discovery was the sky over Mono Pass. Thin clouds blew up the canyon and turned a yellowish color in our images. It looked like a nebula photographed through a telescope. It was very cool.