3. Yosemite
  4. Yosemite Landscapes

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.
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What are you lookin at? A Clark's Nutcracker walks on the ground, harvesting pine seeds from seed caches of the previous year. Copyright © 2004 James McGrew.
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What are you lookin at? A Clark's Nutcracker walks on the ground, harvesting pine seeds from seed caches of the previous year. Copyright © 2004 James McGrew.

clark'snutcracker

  • Packer with her loving mules.
  • Hiking to Vogelsang... Copyright, ©2010 James McGrew
  • Vogelsang Pass. Copyright, ©2010 James McGrew
  • View from the Summit of Vogelsang Peak, looking southwest to Half Dome in the distance. Copyright ©2004, James McGrew.
  • Above Vogelsang Lake, descending from Vogelsang Peak. Copyright ©2004, James McGrew.
  • A backpacker pauses in awe while gazing at the view near Vogelsang Pass.
  • WD9E9425<br /> <br /> So, why do trees twist? Which direction do they twist?
  • Headwaters of Rafferty Creek.
  • Stairs to Vogelsang with Fletcher peak on the left and Vogelsang peak in the center.
  • A group Approaching Tuolumne Pass and Vogelsang HSC
  • Mule trains pack the supplies for the High Sierra Camps.
  • LM2U0633<br /> Prairie Falcon flies over the belding ground squirrel laden meadows near Tuolumne Pass.
  • LM2U0868<br /> <br /> "Run away run away..."
  • 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 /> <br /> 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
  • What are you lookin at? A Clark's Nutcracker walks on the ground, harvesting pine seeds from seed caches of the previous year. Copyright © 2004 James McGrew.
  • Sunset Cloud Panorama from Vogelsang. Copyright © 2007 James McGrew.
  • Tent Cabins at Vogelsang, after a freezing night. ©2011, James McGrew
  • Golden Trout on a tied fly.
  • Reflections. Copyright © 2008 James McGrew. At nearly 11,000 ft elevation many tarns (lakes in the glacially carved bowls or cirques) sometimes remain ice covered well into July.
  • Alpenglow on Fletcher Peak from Vogelsang High Sierra Camp. This is not a sunset. True alpenglow occurs about 30-45 min after the sun has dropped below the horizon, and the sun's rays are scattered and refracted along the earth's atmosphere by high altitude ice crystals or water vapor. This event happens more often in winter and only rarely occurs during the summer. When it does, the mountains or sky can begin to glow with a soft salmon pink, almost apparently glowing from within just at the time the stars begin to appear in the sky.
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