View from Vogelsang

Vogelsang Lake

My daughter, Kelsey and I had the same days off this week so we did a quick hike to Vogelsang Lake via Lyell Canyon. Weather was great, and not very many mosquitoes! The only reason it wasn't the perfect trip was that Kelsey won the gin rummy game.

The Kitchen

The Card Room

The Dining Room

View from Vogelsang Pass

Big'uns and Babies

Sorry that I haven't posted lately. The Internet has been spotty. I'll keep trying!

Many people are interested in young giant sequoia. They wonder if there are any small giants in the grove. Here is a photo of a couple of massive trunks raising above a bunch of twenty-five year old trees. Most of the small trees you can see are young sequoia.

Tomorrow morning Kelsey and I leave bright and early for a quick week-end backpacking trip up Lyell Canyon (I wish I had more warm clothes to pack!).

Staff Photo 2010

Each year we try to get a photo of the Wawona Interpretation Staff. Rarely do we get everyone in the photo; this year was no exception. These \are the 2010 staff photos.They were taken after a morning of training and a great pinic lunch at Wawona Point (Thanks, Dean!).

A Great Way to Start the Day!

How about starting the day with a plateful of perfect pancakes! The smoke alarm didn't even go off (which is a good thing since my house mate works nights and had just gone to bed a few hours before). By the way, the specks in the cakes are blueberries... not maggots, I hope.

A Round of Golf, Anyone?

The past few blog entries have centered around the Meadow Loop. I guess, then, that the golf course can’t be overlooked since it makes up about 50-acres of the meadow.

It is always interesting to observe people’s reaction to a golf course in a national park. The comments usually reveal their views of the purpose of a national park. Some people feel it a great privilege to be able to play a round of golf in such a scenic setting. Other people feel that the golf course is a man-made feature intruding on the natural beauty which the park service is designed to protect.






The golf course was one of the first to be built in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It first opened in 1918 before Wawona was even part of Yosemite National Park, When the Wawona basin was incorporated into the park in 1932, the golf course was part of the package.

The nine-hole golf course uses about 200,000 gallons of recycled water from the wastewater treatment plant each day (when the water is available). Because of its sensitive location, groundskeepers use organic (chemical free) practices in maintaining the course. It is Audubon certified, meaning that it is a bird-friendly and animal-friendly spot (although it could be argued that most of Yosemite National Park can claim that distinction). What a non-golfer like myself might finds intriguing is the periscope on the fifth hole tee which allows the golfer to view the flag over a rise.

Another interesting tidbit of trivia: my supervisor claims that if you look in a south easterly direction from the golf course you can see the tops of some of the sequoia trees in the Mariposa Grove on a ridge five or six miles away. He may be right, but it is fun to argue with him all the same.
 
 

\What do you think? Is a round of golf an appropriate way to enjoy a national park?

Mending Fences

“’Wawona Meadows themselves might be called the Sleepy Hollow of the West,” claimed author J. Smeaton Chase in his 1911 book, “Yosemite Trails”. ‘It is the most peaceful spot that I know of in America … Here is an unbroken meadow, green as heaven, a mile-long, waving knee-high with all delicious grasses and threaded with brooklets of crystal water. It is surrounded with a rail fence that rambles in and out and round about and hither and thither in that sauntering way that makes a rail-fence such a companionable thing.”

(Excerpted from “Yosemite’s Historic Wawona” by Shirley Sargent)

A good portion of the meadow remains much as it was described nearly one hundred years ago. (Okay, the golf course was added a few years after “Yosemite Trails” was written.) One of the things that makes this meadow memorable is the split railing fence that still stands today. Well, sort of. Over the years parts of it have succumbed to nature’s encroachment. Rising vines and falling branches have obscured it in places and destroyed it in others.

This summer there are some changes to the fencing. Parts of it are being restored and parts of it are being removed. The wooden railings from the meadow’s backside are being salvaged and used in restoring the fence closest to the road. It seems sensible but I have mixed feelings about the change. I’ll miss the fence on the backside but it will be nice to see a more natural transition from mountainside to meadow.

When is a meadow not a meadow?

When is a meadow not a meadow? When it is used as: a golf course, a landing strip for bi-winged planes, an helipad, a pasture for sheep, an orchard, a slaughter yard and a hayfield. The Wawona Meadow, one of the largest midmontane meadows in the Sierra Nevada has been used for all of these things throughout its history. Nevertheless, it provides for a pleasant 3.5 mile stroll through the park. Early Tribes called it Pallahchun meaning “a good place to rest.” I think most of us would agree.

Wawona Meadow is home to a variety of animals. I've seen bear, coyote and fox in the area, as well as evidence of moutain lion. It provides habitat for about fifty species of birds including two state endangered birds, great gray owl (Strix nebulosa) and willow flycatcher (Empidonax traillii), as well as several sensitive plant species. It's a fascinating juxtaposition of natural and and historic elements. It could be symoblic of the National Park Service's struggle in trying to to "conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
    (From the 1915 Organic Act which established the National Park Service)