Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park, CA, 10/16/2007
While photographing autumn foliage in the eastern Sierra of California, I noticed some storm activity up in the mountains. I decided to drive west along Tioga Pass Road into the high Sierra of Yosemite National Park to see if I might encounter and photograph the landscape under interesting storm conditions and lighting. When I arrived at Tuolumne Meadows in the late afternoon I prepared my camera by the side of this marshy section of the Tuolumne River during a light snowstorm. The road here is closed every winter because of heavy snow, so this flurry was a hint of the weather to expect in the coming months. Being near the western edge of the storm, the sun occasionally shone through illuminating the river scene in magic light. This photograph was made during one of those brief moments! Even though snow was blowing everywhere, it wasn't accumulating and the water remained strangely undisturbed. Here we are looking southeast across a quiet pool in the river at an elevation of 8,584 feet above sea level. Puppy Dome can just be seen over the trees at far left, and Johnson Peak rises through the clouds and above the meadows and forest in the distance at center and right. Looking ahead and upstream is the confluence of the Dana Fork and Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River. Similarly, the John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail join a very short distance from this spot. Edges and transitions are more interesting to photograph than the centers of things, and that's why I was attracted to this location at this particular time. Here we are by the side of a river where it is joined by two tributaries bordering a meadow near the beginning of a forest under the edge of a storm signaling the end of a season. The Tuolumne River flows nearly 150 miles from the central Sierra Nevada to the San Joaquin River in California's Central Valley. Slightly larger than its southern counterpart the Merced River, the Tuolumne River's upper watershed was shaped by glaciations in the previous ice age, which produced Hetch Hetchy Valley and the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne. The name "Tuolumne" is of Native American origin and has been given different meanings such as "Many Stone Houses", "The Land of Mountain Lions", and "Straight Up Steep". It is likely a corruption of the Indian word "talmalamne", which signifies a cluster of stone wigwams, thus referring to people who dwell in caves.
