Sierra Scenes

I wound up the mountain part of my trip with a visit to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.  Here, in Grant Grove, are some of the most massive sequoias.  These trees are not quite as tall as the coastal redwoods, but they are more massive...in fact they're the earth's largest living things.

Sequoias have thick, fire resistant bark.  A tree can withstand a major blaze and survive, gradually healing the fire scar over many centuries.

The General Grant Tree, third largest sequoia.

A few sequoias do succumb to exceptionally hot and long lived fires, but their charred trunks can remain upright for centuries.

Log Meadow, in Sequoia NP.  The trees are a mixture of white fir, sugar pine, and sequoias...the big boys.

Flowers bloom in Log Meadow.  The meadows are marshy, irrigated by streams.  Much of the year the only way to walk to the middle of a meadow is to go out on an old downed tree trunk.

Crescent Meadow, a jewel in the sequoia forest.

The sequoias thrive between 5000 and 7000 feet elevation...Crescent Meadow is around 6800.  At 9500 feet in Yosemite there are also green meadows, but trees have a harder time.  Hundreds of rocks remain where they were dropped by glaciers, now embedded in the grass and soil.

A mountain tarn in the alpine zone of Yosemite.

A tributary of the Tuolumne River rushes robustly through the forest.

Lupine and Indian paintbrush thrive.

Classic High Sierra shot at 9500 feet.  Usually in late summer most streams dry up in areas like this, but this year that process will be delayed a month or so...there's still plenty of snow to melt in the high country.

The Tuolumne River roars across the granite.

The Lizards love the granite!  This is on Pothole Dome, in Tuolumne Meadows.

The classic shot of Yosemite Valley.  Bridalveil Falls is more robust than usual at this time of year.