I went down to Yosemite last week to see the latest fire. It looked like it was near one I had seen in the early 90's. The fire threat here is more than extreme and very scary. All of Yosemite's famous falls were bone dry and the Merced River didn't look like it was even moving. As I'm writing this, our skies are filled with smoke from a fire between here and Placerville, CA. Everyone is hoping for a nasty, nasty and even more nasty winter even if it means shoveling snow. Michael Frye has blogged about this fire and is worth a read - http://michaelfrye.com/
The fire was started by lightning and left to burn on its own until it took off during a major wind event. When I went down on Wednesday, I headed to Olmstead Point in the high county. It was a bright sunny day without a cloud in the sky so the ribbon like clouds you see is actually smoke. That is Half Dome in the distance and the fire was "behind" it. Below is another shot that was taken well after sunset.
The next two images are from Glacier Point. One was taken at sunset and the next one was a 5-6 minute exposure after sunset. You can see the beginnings of star trails in it. Seeing the fire when it was dark was a humbling experience. I was actually glad that there were others at the point with me and we all were unbelievably saddened by what we saw.
Before returning to Reno, I did a loop to determine the fall color status. From what I can tell, and it was reiterated by a couple of gents from Bishop, is that the color will be early and probably peak in about two weeks. Thankfully, I will be there since I'm also taking a workshop to see the interiors of Bodie. I also stopped at Obsidian Dome since the black rock calls my name. Before I left the area, I took in a sunset at Mono Lake. As it turned out , another fire started between Lee Vining and Conway Summit and Rt 395 was closed for 3 hours so it was a good thing I decided to stay an extra night. Even after it opened, it took 2-3 hours to get through but was fine by the time I left.
