El Portal Road, western entrance, Yosemite National Park, CA, 1/27/2010
Traveling toward the western exit of Yosemite National Park along El Portal Road, I spotted this beautiful old Tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflorus) tree over the Merced River. Absent the towering granite monoliths and waterfalls, this end of the park tends to be more of a place where people drive by, rather than a destination. I've always been fascinated by transitions - areas in which the ordinary and uncelebrated meet the grand and famous. This Merced River scene is just such a place, where a valley of world-famed beauty has become a simple river gorge and where lining the riverbed are giant boulders that were once part of the renowned granite formations of Yosemite.
