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Yosemite Valley Nears Peak

Cook's Meadow, Yosemite NP (10/28/14) Suzanne Jensen

Cook’s Meadow, Yosemite NP (10/28/14) Suzanne Jensen

Yosemite Valley (Near Peak 50 – 75%) – A photo posted by a Yosemite friend on her Facebook page shows a black oak peaking in Cook’s Meadow with frost on the meadow. It inspired calls to Yosemite.

My friend said some of the black oaks in the Valley are beautiful and at peak, some are yet to change and some have changed quickly with dry, colorless leaves that fall after almost no show.  She mentioned that for the past two years, she’s observed dryer and dryer leaves, perhaps an indicator that the drought is affecting the color in Yosemite Valley, as reported is occurring on Mt. Laguna in Eastern San Diego County. She noted that dogwood are showing less of their fresh rose and red tones and lighter pink, than seen in past years.

Yosemite Falls, Autumn (File Photo) John Poimiroo

Yosemite Falls, Autumn (File Photo) John Poimiroo

That’s surprising, as far below Yosemite Valley lies a great aquifer that supplies seemingly endless pure water for consumption by the visitors and residents of Yosemite Valley.  It is the remnant of millennia of melted snow and ice that have poured over the rim of Yosemite Valley in a seasonal display of spectacular waterfalls. Despite all that water, could fall color be another casualty of California’s drought?  At least, in some parts of the state?  We can only speculate.

As reported previously, the signature sugar maple near the Yosemite Chapel has turned, though early bets are for the bigleaf maple and dogwood near Fern Spring (where Hwy 140 enters the west end of the Valley, below Tunnel View) to be dropping yellow, orange and mottled leaves into the dark waters of the spring. GO NOW!