Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, CA, 6/8/2011
Here is the eastward High Sierra view from Glacier Point in California's Yosemite National Park! Beneath the Geology Exhibit I found a level granite rock to stand on with an unobstructed northeast to southeast visual field. This panorama begins and ends where the pines on Glacier Point itself begin to dominate. I arrived here late on a beautiful spring afternoon and prepared to make this photograph. After the sun lowered in the sky softening the light, I captured the scene just before Vernal Fall (at bottom center) vanished into shadows. Here are some of the more notable features in this landscape: Behind the pines at left are North Dome and Basket Dome. Below them is Washington Column. To the right of these is Tenaya Canyon beneath Mt. Watkins. To the right of the canyon is Half Dome. Beyond that and slightly to the left is Clouds Rest, the summit of which - fittingly - is obscured by a cloud, as is the top of Half Dome. Casting the shadow next to Vernal Fall are Grizzly Peak and Sierra Point. In back of them is Mt. Broderick, and behind that, Little Yosemite Valley. To the right of Mt. Broderick is Liberty Cap. Nevada Fall is the bright waterfall to the right of Liberty Cap. The enormous vertical rough granite formation right of Nevada Fall is called Panorama Cliff and the distant peak beyond that, beneath the tallest clouds is Mt. Starr King. Glacier Point is located on the south wall of Yosemite Valley at an elevation of 7,214 feet above sea level, about 3,200 feet directly above Curry Village. The extreme point of the promontory of Glacier Point is wholly bare, but on the slopes below, in the hollow to the west, and on the wooded slope above, glacial material is abundant. The point's glacial origin is definitely proven by the presence in it of rocks derived from Little Yosemite Valley and the High Sierra. To help you grasp the scale of this terrain, Vernal Fall drops 317 feet and Nevada Fall drops 594 feet. The stage was set for the creation of these waterfalls when two major fractures developed in the otherwise solid granite walls. Glaciers ground and carved away the downhill side of the fractures, leaving the two falls traversing what is sometimes referred to as the Giant Staircase. Vernal and Nevada Falls are part of the Merced River, which flows through Yosemite Valley, far below.
