Posted by Karen on 15-May-2010
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After enjoying all the wood carvings and kissing the bear, Pauline and I took a left turn and headed towards the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park and the coast. Sinkyone is one of the most remote state parks I’ve visited; to reach the north entrance of the park you traverse through the mountains of the King Range Conservation area and the last 3.5 miles are a narrow, winding pot-hole-filled dirt road. Pauline was a trooper and didn’t show any nervousness peering down the steep embankments on her side of the SUV, but she did show excitement when she spotted the heard of Roosevelt Elk below us. We arrive at the visitor center and after a nice chat with the park hosts, we enjoy lunch in the barn protected from the ocean breeze. Afterwards, we continued along the coast road and when it ended, we hiked down to Bear Harbor, a tiny black sands beach that’s very pretty. We explored it for awhile, enjoyed talking with some folks that were camping out there and then as we were leaving, Pauline, said get ready to take the picture when I fall into the water while crossing this creek to get back out… I had the camera aimed, but she never fell, handled the log hopping like a pro actually! On the way out, we took the road past Shelter Cove to see the lighthouse and then it was back across the mountain to our campsite.
Posted by Karen on 31-Jan-2010
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Lori and I went to Yosemite Valley to spend the weekend under the Full Wolf Moon, the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. From the Farmers’ Almanac:
Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
On the way down Friday, we stopped at a vineyard and tried to capture the rows of bare grape vines and the precise line of trees behind it. We also stopped to look at a camping trailer I was interested in, so we didn’t arrive at Yosemite until slightly before sunset. We went up to Tunnel View to watch the sunset, which was fairly ordinary, but then the full moon started rising behind Half Dome and that was very extraordinary. For sleeping, we’d rented one of the Curry Village heated cabins and I must say, the heaters in those cabins are excellent.
Saturday morning, we walked over to the Happy Isles Bridge and photographed the Merced River and then we headed over to Yosemite Falls, Ahwahnee Meadow, Sentinel Bridge and just photographed away. We decided to spend sunset and moonrise on Sentinel Bridge, photographing Half Dome and the Merced River. We met a few other hardy souls out there with their cameras too and we all chatted and laughed away even though it was near freezing out there. We saw a little avalanche fall from Half Dome and I got a few pictures of it, which was kind of exciting. After the sun set, a huge cloud of fog settled over the horizon and even though it was the biggest and fullest moon of the year, we couldn’t see it rising, just the illumination of it behind the fog. Okay, time for pizza and warmth.
Sunday morning, we checked out the visitor center and the Indian Museum and met an old Indian woman weaving baskets in the traditional style. At Valley View, we met a couple of crows that were more than eager to pose for us, so of course we had to oblige them and take their photograph. As we headed for home, we stopped for one last waterfall on Cascade Creek, and then headed home after a really nice weekend.
