Skip to main content

Day 5: Not A Lot of Hiking Today


Part of Tenaya Lake, notice the snow (Cell Phone)

Today we woke up a bit later than yesterday, we slept in till 6:30 AM.  We had breakfast at the hotel, which was well below the average hotel breakfast buffet and not very appetizing.  After breakfast we drove to the park, and got there around 8:30 AM, and were informed Tioga Road was open, so we made the 2 hour drive up to Tuolumne Meadows.  We made the drive quickly because we were racing weather. A storm was supposed to come in later in the afternoon, which could force them to reclose the road and we did not want to get stuck on the wrong side.  The meadow itself was not very interesting, which I should have expected at this time of year since there was still a fair bit of snow on the ground in some places heading up to the meadows, and the meadows itself was still brown.  It also didn’t help that most areas along that road are only open in the summer, and this is one of the few times this May the road has been open.    We did get a few pictures, and stopped at the Tenaya Lake and Olmstead Point pull offs to get some pictures of the lake and half dome respectively.  We then continued back down to the valley.

View from Olmsted Point (Cell Phone)

Jim and I at Olmsted Point (Cell Phone)

Once back in the main valley we took Wawona Road up to Tunnel View, where you have a beautiful overview of Yosemite Valley with views of Half Dome, El Capitan, and Bridalveil Falls.  We took several photos in that area, but did not make the hike up to “Inspiration Point” or “Old Inspiration Point” because Jim’s knee was bothering him from yesterday's hike.  We then drove over to the Bridalveil Falls trail head to hike over to the falls viewing point.  The hike really wasn’t a hike it was more like a short, walk since the viewing area was 1000 ft from the parking lot.   After getting a few pictures there, we determined it was time to head back to the hotel because the clouds were starting to look ominous and the sky was starting to darken.  We determined we did not want to be stuck in any rain storms.

View from Tunnel View (Cell Phone)

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel we went to get dinner.  We were originally going to eat at Happy Burger Diner (mostly because I keep seeing signs for it) but they actually had  substantial wait.  Who knew a restaurant in this tiny town could have a wait.  So we went over to 1850 to eat.  I had the pulled pork which was good,  and Jim had the ninja burger.  He said the burger was different, but it was not the flavor explosion he was expecting based on the description.  After that it was back to the hotel to call it a day.

Tomorrow, we will be getting up extra early to get the park so we can catch the morning light.  In all honesty it is how the light reflects off the features of the valley that makes Yosemite. Tomorrow will also be our last day in the park,  we decided since several of the trails and roads are closed till summer to leave early.  This means we will get to spend a full day in San Francisco, instead of a half day like the original plan.  This means I can see the seals and the Golden Gate Bridge, neither of which I have ever seen even though I have been to San Francisco.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2024 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2025

This year felt a little off for me; I think it was because I was in a mental recovery mode.  I finished my graduate program in June and immediately went on a week-long vacation to Palm Springs.  I do not recommend Palm Springs in June; way too hot.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but the graduate program mentally and physically exhausted me, which I think showed in some of my creative work.  But being able to work with great people like Natalie Hanrion , Coralinx Cosplay , and Anastasia B kept me motivated.  While I didn’t attend as many Cosplay Photo Shoot events as in the past, the ones I did attend were helpful in keeping the creativity flowing.  I also took some time this year to reflect on a few things and will be making some changes for 2025. In 2024, I shot 6241 frames, which is a 30-percent decrease from last year.  I edited 3187 frames, which is a 40-percent decrease from 2023.  I think this year, I started focusing on being very min...

First Session of 2025 - Queen of Hearts

My first official shoot of 2025 was with Lady Cels on January 4 th , to shoot her Queen of Hearts cosplay based off the NoFlutter Design. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 1 FJ400 Westcott Strobes 60-inch umbrella with sock 1 rectangular soft box 1 bell reflector grids 2 C-stands 1 Platypod Sandbags Backdrop stand Savage Primary Red Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps   Gold ring wedding altar pieces Playing cards Flowers Styrofoam block Scotch tape     The set up The inspiration for this shoot was obviously the Queen of Hearts, but I took my set design cues from the original NoFlutter drawing.  I wanted to create something similar to the swirls used in the background of the image, so I started looking at wrought iron garden fences and ended up on gold we...

Night Queen

On September 28th, I did a session with May.   This session’s theme was designed around a Halloween headpiece I made a couple of years ago but never got to shoot.   The vibe of the overall shoot was dark queen. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 rectangular soft boxes grids 2 C-stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Fuzzy grey backdrop Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps 2 trilevel plant stands Fake candles Goblets Fake flowers Black fabric Silver fabric Large Styrofoam block Dowel Rods Skulls Fake moss Dry ice   The set up I tried to keep this setup simple in nature.  I started with the base of a fuzzy grey backdrop to which I added a “throne” made from a large Styrofoam block, some dowel rods, and a piece of black fabric.  To that I added two flower pot hol...