What's the Secret Word?

MONDAY, June 13 …


It’s no secret. The ultimate word for Yosemite this season is WATER.

Water: cascading, flowing, roiling, boiling, meandering, coursing, raging, gurgling, spraying, standing, hurtling, falling, splashing. Nearly everywhere you look, there is water.

An April 1 survey showed the snowpack at 178% of average this year. And it shows. The park’s handout newspaper describes Yosemite Falls as “2,400 gallons of water hurtling over a cliff every single second.”

That is nearly unimaginable, yet I suspect this year it’s an even higher number. And that’s only one of the bigger waterfalls. There are also many other major waterfalls such as Bridal Veil—

Cascade Creek –

and scores of little temporary falls all through these mountains as the huge snowpack melts.

Water has been described as “Of All Things Most Yielding,” for its ability to flow around and over and under and not raise much of a fuss. And yet it was water that carved this elegant Yosemite Valley. It was water that created Carlsbad Caverns and all the other major cavern systems. And it is water that is causing such a traffic jam in Yosemite Valley this year. Just like us, thousands and thousands of people are called this season to witness the (dare I use the word?) awesome displays of water. Yosemite is always crowded in the spring, but this is a banner year for water and for crowding!

Spring: what an unusual word. Spring is the season; a spring is a place where water seems to generate itself from the ground; and water springs from cliffs in these mountains.

How was our first visit to Yosemite this year? Well, before we even got into the park, my camera went bad. The self-generated diagnosis was “System Failure – Focus.” I could not resurrect the camera, my Lumix, the one that everyone else was congratulating me for buying.

And it’s been a good camera, except that today it went belly-up. Fortunately we had Suzy’s camera, a nice Kodak that gives her good results. Unfortunately, I don’t know its ins and outs, so I’m basically pointing and shooting.

Secondly, we wanted to go to the store in Yosemite Village (to see if we could buy an inexpensive replacement camera and a few other things). We found a parking space in a lot maybe a quarter mile from the store, unloaded Big Red so Suzy could ride over to the store while I walked. Big Red lasted maybe 50 yards and absolutely quit – flat out suddenly stopped dead. Hey, there are new batteries in there! Hey, we just gave it a complete charge! And it stopped short, never to go again, for today at least.


Suzy on Big Red - file photo

We pushed Big Red back to the car and loaded it up, drove over to the store, luckily found a car pulling out of its parking space, and quickly slipped in. Nope, the only camera they sell is a Fujifilm throwaway, but they did have a couple of things we wanted. Back to the car we went to return to our RV park.
Tomorrow we have friends driving in to spend a couple of days with us, so we won’t be heading back to Yosemite until at least Thursday, Maybe by then we’ll have found some answers.

More of our Yosemite pictures (at least those taken so far) can be found at 2001 Yosemite.

More, we hope much more, will be available next time, as we rejoice in … Our Life on Wheels!