Southside Drive, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, CA, 10/19/2009
This was to be a day of changeable weather in Yosemite Valley. Here is a view of El Capitan from the forest by Southside Drive about a half hour after sunrise. The sun was gleaming and the clouds and fog were clearing. By late morning the sky would completely cloud over again and produce heavy rain that threatened to go on for days. By mid-afternoon the rain would stop, the sun would reemerge, and the clouds and fog would clear once more! Although challenging to predict and work with, "bad" weather produces some of the best photographic opportunities. I'm especially fond of the juxtaposition of the ephemeral and vanishing fog with the ageless and enduring El Capitan. El Capitan is the largest exposed granite face in the world, and rises 3,600 feet above the valley floor. The formation was named by the Mariposa Battalion when it explored the Yosemite valley in 1851. El Capitan ("the captain" or "the chief") was a loose Spanish translation of the local Native American name for the cliff.
