High Country and High Sierra Camps

Some of my favorite places in Yosemite are on the High Sierra Loop trip through the High Sierra camps: Tuolumne, Glen Aulin, May Lake, Sunrise, Merced Lake, and Vogelsang. Here's a brief photo tour of some of the sights from the camps and trails along the way in the order of the seven day loop trip.

Clark's Nutcracker eating seeds from a Whitebark Pine cone. Vogelsang High Sierra Camp, Yosemite, CA. The Clark's Nutcracker's obnoxious yet melodic calls fill the High Sierra air in summer: a comforting sound to anyone who has spent much time in the upper elevations. These corvids, exhibiting ashtonishing intelligence like their cousins (ravens, crows, jays), ultimately provide the foundation for the Whitebark pine subalpine ecosystems. Unlike most pine cones which open to reveal winged seeds that disperse on the wind, the whitebark cones remain sealed until the seeds typically die. Instead, the massive, nutritious seeds remain cemented into massive cones shielded by pitch and tannins. During the month of August, the cones ripen and the nutcrackers blast the cones with powerful long bills and delicately remove each seed for consumption or storage in a sublingual pouch. The nutcrackers fly off, bury the seeds for later harvest as their primary food supply throughout the year. Through triangulation, visual cues and memory, the birds recover as many as thirty thousand seed caches over the course of a year. However, they leave some seeds buried which ultimately germinate and start new pines. <br />
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Without the nutcrackers, whitebark pines cannot reproduce. Without the trees, the nutcrackers can't survive. As a result of the perfect symbiosis, an entire ecosystem thrives. Yosemite's beauty blossoms out of the most complex interrelationships. Copyright, © 2008, James McGrew

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Clark's Nutcracker eating seeds from a Whitebark Pine cone. Vogelsang High Sierra Camp, Yosemite, CA. The Clark's Nutcracker's obnoxious yet melodic calls fill the High Sierra air in summer: a comforting sound to anyone who has spent much time in the upper elevations. These corvids, exhibiting ashtonishing intelligence like their cousins (ravens, crows, jays), ultimately provide the foundation for the Whitebark pine subalpine ecosystems. Unlike most pine cones which open to reveal winged seeds that disperse on the wind, the whitebark cones remain sealed until the seeds typically die. Instead, the massive, nutritious seeds remain cemented into massive cones shielded by pitch and tannins. During the month of August, the cones ripen and the nutcrackers blast the cones with powerful long bills and delicately remove each seed for consumption or storage in a sublingual pouch. The nutcrackers fly off, bury the seeds for later harvest as their primary food supply throughout the year. Through triangulation, visual cues and memory, the birds recover as many as thirty thousand seed caches over the course of a year. However, they leave some seeds buried which ultimately germinate and start new pines.

Without the nutcrackers, whitebark pines cannot reproduce. Without the trees, the nutcrackers can't survive. As a result of the perfect symbiosis, an entire ecosystem thrives. Yosemite's beauty blossoms out of the most complex interrelationships. Copyright, © 2008, James McGrew

clark's nutcracker