As mentioned from the evening before, I had not taken the time to appreciate where we were, I was only glad to have arrived and united with the rest of our group. I awoke early on Day 4 to realize the amazing little corner of the world into which we had arrived. We had set up camp in the trees (well, the early arrival crew had!) and were just beside the Lyell Fork of the Merced River which flows all the way down to Nevada and Vernal Falls. The serene meadow with the S-curve of river gently flowing through, the panorama of Mt. AA in the background, the reflection in the water, the sun just rising, Venus and the moon crescent, the mist in the meadow...it was simply breathtaking.
These pictures just don't do the place justice. I can't wait to point you to Jeff's images. His work is incredible. He was up early here again and has a beautiful image of Sunrise, Moon and Venus.
We were all quite ready for a day of recovery. The packers loaded up their things to head on back to the pack station. It was an emotional goodbye for Dad, as he and Owen both well knew the risks that we had taken to get there. Owen just kept saying, "We got you here, we got you here."
So now on our own, we relaxed, recuperated, and rested. I love this shot because you can see Jeremy nursing his blisters, Dad in the left background contemplating fly fishing, and Jeff in the right background beside his tripod journaling about our adventures. We joked throughout that trip that we were giving him plenty to journal about and that he was going to have a hard time keeping up!
I called on Dr. Clark to take care of a couple of hot spots, too. Thankfully no blisters for me, although the moleskin helped keep that in check.
So these black canisters in several pictures are the required bear canisters in which to store food and other smelly items. They actually hold quite a bit and we carried in six. Thankfully we were able to empty one out and send it back with the packer to leave in our car. We did fill it with our trash, an empty gas canister, and a book that Mom decided to forgo reading. Each canister weighs about 3 pounds on its own and any weight that we could get off our packs was valuable. The canisters always come in handy for seats, too. :) And yes, you have to pack out all of your trash, every bit of it. You are not supposed to burn or bury it, helps keep the Sierras pristine!
Another view of the meadow, it was always changing depending on the light, clouds, and time of day.
Dad, Jeremy, and Jonathan are all fly fishermen. We did have two yummy meals of fresh rainbow trout.
We did some laundry. Jeremy had a super lightweight collapsible "sink" in which we dissolved paper soap wafers. Basically you swish things around for a bit and hope for decent results. Everything is minimal, so you are basically wearing one set of clothes and have one more spare, or just layers to add on.
Unfortunately we did not have time to let our clothes dry fully before it started to rain. It's fairly common for Yosemite to get spotty afternoon thunderstorms, but we ended up being in a weather pattern that did not let up all week. Today it down poured for a very. long. time.
Even the most beautiful images can be made in the rain. We all enjoyed seeing Jeff at work and may have even been a bit starstruck. The art of using a 4x5 view camera is amazing. You can barely see the upside down image through the viewer.
Um yeah, this is where our wet laundry ended up!
The rain wasn't too bad at first. We had the "kitchen" set up and a fire going to help dry things out. The rain fly ended up being invaluable again. The guys got in some fishing, and we enjoyed poking around the area, even in the rain.
Jeff took us just down the river to a spot where AA captured one of his famous images. Of course his were in black and white. I believe his image is from the 1920s and is called Lodgepole Pines. It made me appreciate his work all the more when I knew from experience the effort it took to get to this spot, and with a heavy camera to boot. :)
This is a zoomed in view of Mt. AA. Jeff explained to us that you can see AA's face in the mountain. Once I found it, I was never able to see the mountain again without seeing Ansel's face. It's really incredible. It's somewhat of a profile view with him facing to the left. The white horizontal line at the top would be the brim of his Stetson hat. From the brim right down the center of the mountain you can see the line of his nose, then his chin with beard. As the light changes on it during the day it's just fabulous!
Jeff found some remnants of Doc Moyle's camp, some old cans hidden behind some rocks that pulled out to reveal secret cubbies.
We saw lots of glaciated granite on this trek. It's gorgeous, but can be dangerously slippery when wet.
Yeah, this guy was left at our camp, too. He seemed fairly fresh, maybe from early this year or last summer. We found bits and pieces of him around. One of the guys found him with their flashlight at night when looking for a tree. Ha! :)
Jeff kept trying to work through the rain. Jeremy and I tagged along as he tried to capture an image of the river starting to cascade. He was very patient and explaining things to us, but unfortunately we delayed him too much and he had to give up when it started to rain harder. Sorry, Jeff!
So after having a good bit of the day for rest even with the light rain, it started to rain harder. Mom took cover in our tent, I took cover in the "kitchen", and the guys started using our hiking poles to cut trenches and save our camp from becoming a lake. They had to move one tent and got soaked and exhausted trying to channel the water away from our kitchen. We did have a lake for a bit and the bear canisters about floated away when the water got up to four inches deep on them.
Our boots were soaked from the day before, and now the guys extra pairs of shoes were soaked from fighting the rising waters in camp. Jonathan here trying to roast (dry) his socks. :) We were thankful for a great fire, but um, it got a bit too high and snapped one of the ropes that held the fly. Oops!
Every cloud has a silver lining, or at least a rainbow, right? Once the rain began to subside a bit, we were mesmerized by the scene in the meadow. We had a FULL rainbow, doubled in places. No words can describe it. I guess when you go through tough trials and then are rewarded with God's glory, it's too much for words. I've seen a proof of the image that Jeff captured of this and it pretty much brings me to my knees. I told him that if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, it would look unreal to me. But having been there myself, and knowing what we went through to witness these few grand moments in the meadow, it is very real to me. God, the Creator of All!
Sharing a moment. We shared so many.
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