We went out to Yosemite again this weekend. I don’t know what it is but no matter how much i’ve tried i always end up taking pictures of half-dome. It’s an amazing thing, but i’ve been trying to find other items of note in the valley. This weekend found the leaves about one to two weeks short of their optimal fall colors.

It’s amazing driving through the valley. With so many evergreens the colors stand out even more, and you can see yellows and reds weaving their way up the mountain faces.
There are regular controller burns in the valley and up in the hills. I guess the theory to this is that they keep the amount of flammable material to a minimum by burning it out every so often in a controlled way. If there were to be a real fire it would be much easier to control and wouldn’t be able to spread so far so quickly.

Every so often you would happen across a field that had been burned sometime in the not to distant past. The underbrush is all at about the same height and density, and the trees are scorched from their roots up to about 12 feet from the ground. Nature repairs itself pretty readily and the trees continue.

It didn’t help things that i worked far too much the week preceding this trip and by the time friday afternoon rolled around i was far too gone to enjoy the 2 days respite as i usually can. I was quite content to get up (sorta) early, eat bacon and eggs in the dining hall and drive around the valley drinking coffee. I think that my pictures suffered though because of it (and i had a new camera to break in!). The only thing that i can promise that there’ll be another trip soon. Hopefully!