Framedlight

The afternoon was getting long in the tooth when we arrived back from our Gaylor Lakes walk. We asked the ranger at the Park entrance where would be the best place to go for some sunset views and he said to go back to the Toluomne Meadows which we had been criss crossing all afternoon. I had wanted to photograph the sun going down behind the Cathedral Range but it was very disappointing, the sky remaining a dull yellow until it got completely dark. However, turning round I saw the Dana- Gibbs range lit a glowing red. These high mountains, Dana is 13,035 ft, are of different stock to the granite of Yosemite and have a red hue anyway and the sun was bringing out the best in them. The first picture is taken from near the Park entrance and the others from the meadows by the Toluomne River. It is getting progressively darker. I had a polariser on for the first shot and it has done something rather strange to the sky, but I quite like the effect. After the light had gone...

Having obtained petrol we thought a spot of lunch was in order, which we shared with glossy bright eyed Brewers blackbirds.  We had parked in a picnic spot in the meadows and after lunch walked a little way to see some soda springs which just bubble up from the ground. They are not hot but taste just like Vichy water. They stain the earth red and give strange greens to the Toluomne river, presumably from alga growth. Next to the springs are a number of wooden buildings. Around a portion of the springs an open topped shack was put up by John Baptiste Lembert who grazed goats in this area from 1885. John Muir liked to camp here and it was to this location he brought the magazine editor Robert Johnson to see the damage done by the sheep to the meadows. It was a meeting that was to bring about the inclusion of the large section surrounding the Tioga Road into Yosemite National Park. The wooden McCauley cabin was used by the Sierra Club until 1973 and the Parson...