High Sierra Topix

NWS forecasts have firmed up that the storm pushing down the Pacific Coast this evening will likely have the coldest pool of air we may see this winter. Thus this storm due to push into the Yosemite region tomorrow afternoon, Tuesday Feb 27, maybe the best chance to see snow pasting all the south facing Yosemite Valley cliffs. Most of the time when it snows in the valley, temps are barely below freezing so the immense south facing rock walls like El Cap don't get cold enough for snow to really pile up on all the ledges. With a forecast for 1000 to 1500 foot foohill elevation levels, Wednesday morning is likely to offer conditions well down in the 20s similar to what I found March 3 last year. I'll be driving up tomorrow morning and staying at cheapo Camp 4 in my Moss tent thru at least Thursday.

http://www.davidsenesac.com/images/print_06-e3-1.html

...David

Man, sounds like a winner of a storm. Wish I could get up there too - been dying to head up to Yosemite recently. Awesome pic you posted David

Back from the road trip. Got there Tuesday afternoon and noted about a foot of new snow covered the Yosemite Valley floor from the overnight snows. Snow level was a bit above El Portal at around 3000 feet. Was the only resident of Camp 4 my two nights. Well except for a mouse that often tried to find its way into my zippered up tent. Then Tuesday night with the colder storm about 7 more inches piled up so the whole valley is at least for a few days solid white. When sun came out in the day, snows quickly melted back especially on most of the roads. On way out noticed patches of snow below the road all the way down to about 1500 feet west of Mariposa. Input 16 exposed 4x5 sheets of film to my lab today and will pick that up Monday. Took some Coolpix digi pics including the above image of moss, a bit of snow, icicles and some nice light blue lichen spots on the granite. Twas more often too cloudy for wide landscapes of the icon valley features so spent quite a bit of my time looking for small intimate closeups while tromping about in snowshoes. ...David

You could sell that to Budweiser!

Picked up my 16 processed film sheets yesterday then crudely flatbed scanned the above image. This is a Provia 100F 4x5 through my 90mm Nikor at about EV12.8. As usual, some disappointments and some surprises with results. The above image was one of the better subjects that came out well. The reflection is on the Merced River that in most winters early March would be impossible to get a reasonable good reflection of due to high flows that would be too wavy. Of course precipiation this winter has until recently been light so all the Yosemite Valley river and stream flows are low with some slack still waters like this about. Here late Thursday morning or a day after snows had stopped, I sought out an area of the river shadowed by high cliffs so the snow would not be so contrasty like areas in sunlight. Also because the area gets little sunlight any time of day, the snow had not melted at all on trees still coating every branch and twig. ...David

Those are beautiful Dave...I Love the icicles..very cool.
The Merced river one is gorgeous..has such a peacefull quite look and feel to it I think