Support California State Parks
The Governator of California, among a number of other bizarre recent “decisions” has recommend closing almost all California State Parks. This is just plain nuts for a whole bunch of reasons. (How do you close a public park? how do you protect the parks from vandals and marijuana growers and off-road vehicles? What happens to valuable and sensitive sites like Bodie? Why close the parks that produce more income and taxes than they cost to run?)
Of course, given that he is also in the process of laying off tens of thousands of tax paying public employees, reducing support for education in the state the already ranks 47th in the nation for per-student k12 education funding, swiping money from local governments… and much more… it is hard for some to get worked up over parks.
But please do get worked up. And then share your opinion. One first step is go go here.
A photo at Yosemite Blog
I somehow forgot the mention this, but Yosemite Blog pointed to one of my recent dogwood photographs from Yosemite Valley. Yosemite Blog is a great source of current information about the Valle and the Park – they are in my RSS reader!
You can see much more of my photography at my photography blog.
Quick note about Tioga Pass and other interesting things
I posted a few times during recent weeks concerning the opening date for Tioga Pass – something that many of us look forward to every spring. Tioga Pass Road did open the middle of last week, and we “west siders” once again have a more efficient (and quite stunning!) route to the east side.
(The pass opened about one day earlier than I estimated it would – I was expecting a Thursday opening. If you are interested in more information about when this route is likely to open and close, there is a history of opening and closing dates on the web.)
Of course, a lot of people are going to be very pleased that the pass opened in time for the Memorial Holiday weekend – not only the travelers who want to cross it but also the businesses on the east side that rely on the traffic. (I’ve been to Lee Vining in the winter when the only access is via a long drive from anywhere else – and things can be very quiet over there.)
As to my plans… a variety of factors are going to keep me from traveling this weekend. I’ll stay right here in the SF Bay Area and I won’t even have much opportunity to get out on the trail or do photography – lot’s of other things to take care of. But I can’t complain. It won’t be too many more weeks until my annual period of “gainful unemployment” as a college faculty member begins, and at that point I’ll try to more than make up for the stay-at-home Memorial Holiday weekend.
May 22 Opening for Tioga Pass?
Edie reports at the Little Red Tent blog that her “sources” say that Tioga Pass is likely to be open by May 22. Apparently the roadway is now clear and some work remains to be done widening the plowed area and working through some hazard zones.
May 22 Opening for Sonora Pass?
Sierra Journal reports that the opening of Sonora Pass is scheduled for May 22. This is significant for a number of reasons, including the following:
- The availability of the Sonora Pass route considerably reduces the time/distance that SF Bay Area folks must drive to get to the eastern Sierra.
- This suggests that other routes like Ebbetts and Monitor Pass will also be open at that time.
- Tioga Pass often seems to open within about a week of the opening of Sonora. If that happens this time we could guess that Tioga might open before the end of May.
I’m ready!
(Although it is not a “pass,” the Glacier Point Road opened early this week.)
Glacier Point Road Opening Delayed
This is certainly no surprise, given the “interesting” weather this weekend – and I guessed earlier that this might happen – but according to a number of sources, including the NPS itself, the opening of Glacier Point Road, originally scheduled for yesterday, has been delayed until this coming Monday, May 4 due to weather concerns.
Some might wonder whether the weather could delay the opening of Tioga Pass Road. My guess is “no.” First, they generally seem to open the road near the end of a week, if memory serves, so there must be some leeway about the actual opening day. Second, it is not at all unusual to get a bit of “shoulder season” (fall and spring) snow that melts quickly in a day or two. The only fly in the ointment here is that this damp weather could last into the first half of next week. If that happens, I suppose that it is possible that road clearing work might be delayed – but my hunch is that this won’t end up being the case.
Take Transit to Trails?
Tom Mangan of Two-Heel Drive (Tom, again I first typed Two-Hell Drive before backspacing and correcting… ;-) has an interesting post with a quick overview of some options for getting to your San Francisco Bay Area hike on public transit. (See Transit accessible trails in the Bay Area)
Read Tom’s Post for details and links to more information. The short story is that you have lots of options if you live in certain areas north of the Golden Gate. You have limited options if you live elsewhere in the Bay Area, but some of them do seem pretty interesting. His report on Mt. Diablo, for example, is intriguing. I’ve often considered heading to New Almaden Quicksilver County Park on a VTA but have never quite gotten around to it – something about schlepping my typical Big Bag o’ Camera Gear through city streets and on the bus perhaps?
A day after posting this I realized I could have had even more perverse fun with the title of the post – “Time to Take Transit to Top Trails” would have worked. (I suspect that Tom would have approved… or at least chuckled a bit.)
Glacier Point Road Set To Open Friday… Or Maybe Not?
According to a variety of reports that have been floating around for the past couple of weeks, Yosemite National Park’s Glacier Point Road is scheduled to open tomorrow, May 1 “conditions permitting.” That last pair of words may well be important this season, as a respectable storm is scheduled to pass through northern California on Friday.
My bet at this point is that the NPS will delay the official opening of the road a bit.
Informal updates on Tioga Pass Road indicate that a decent chunk of the road from the west has been cleared, and I’m betting that other portions have also been cleared. The NPS won’t say in advance when it will open and I haven’t heard any unofficial announcements (I sometimes manage to pick up on a few of these a week or so before the opening) but it is likely to be at least a few more weeks. I’m betting against the first half of May, but I’m pretty confident about the second half.
Update: Right after posting this I saw an update on Tioga Road at Yosemite blog. The short story is that they have made it to the May Lake turnoff.
My Lucky Day at Point Lobos
Yesterday I drove toward the Monterey Bay area planning to visit Point Lobos for a half day of morning photography. As I passed through Castroville I heard a report on the radio: Highway 1 was closed south of Carmel for the Big Sur Marathon. Yikes! Point Lobos is about five minutes south of the road closure.
For a moment I debated whether to turn around and head back or try to pick a different destination, but the report went on to say that they were convoying vehicles past the runners, though there would be a delay – so I figured I stick with my plan and see what would happen. When I arrived at the start of the race – the shopping center south of Carmel – the road was completely blocked, there were hundreds of runners, and traffic was shunted to the left into the almost completely full shopping center parking lot. I saw a sign for “convoy parking” so I drove over an inquired. There was a two hour interval between convoys, but one was scheduled to leave in a half hour or so… so I picked up a coffee nearby and before taking my place in the line.
When I finally arrived at Point Lobos I was initially taken aback by a huge stream of runners/walkers who were apparently taking a route through the park, but it turned out that they had apparently just started near the south end of the reserve and come through more or less in one group. They soon passed, and it turned out that I was one of only two cars that had gotten into the park during/before the passing of the first convoy. On a spring morning I was almost alone at Point Lobos!
For the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon I met no other hikers, photographers, or other park visitors whatsoever. I saw one other person on a distant rock at one point, but that was it. Anyone who has visited Point Lobos knows that on a typical Sunday in spring the place if full of cars and there are people everywhere. I took advantage of this unusual situation to photograph a family of harbor seals who were very close to the shoreline and later to hike a trail through the pine forested hills that I’ve meant to visit for years.
I think I need to find out when this marathon is scheduled for next spring and plan to do this again!
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Dan's Outside 
Over at my photography site – another epic two-day sierra shoot
I spent the weekend shuttling around areas ranging from Yosemite Valley to Mono Lake to Mariposa grove. The story is posted at my photography web site.
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June 8, 2009 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | california, epic, grove, lake, mariposa, meadows, mono, national, nevada, park, pass, Photography, redwood, road, sequoia, sierra, tioga, tree, trip, tuolumne, usa, valley, wawona, Yosemite | Comments Off on Over at my photography site – another epic two-day sierra shoot