Yosemite Valley, Tuolumne Meadows
The Most Photographed Valley in America
We drove about 84 miles into the mountains from Modesto, California. There were meadows and towers of granite. Towering pines trailed through the high cliffs. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED VALLEY IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were over 400 cars and about a dozen tour buses, turning the two lane road into a parking lot. We walked along a hiking path to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides – pictures of the valley taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.
"No one sees the valley," he said finally.
A long silence followed.
"Once you've seen the signs about the valley, it becomes impossible to see the valley."
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others.
"We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Kyle? An accumulation of nameless energies."
There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.
"Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."
Another silence ensued.
"They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.
This excerpt from Don DeLillo's novel White Noise originally refers to "the most photographed barn in America," but minor changes make it perfectly applicable to the Yosemite Valley. From Ansel Adam's to Apple, the most iconic views in the park are so prevalent that it's hard to look anywhere and see something that hasn't been reproduced a thousand times.
Fire in the Valley
The Forest Service managed a controlled burn to convert an area forested with invasive trees back to it's natural state as a meadow. The amount of energy put into managing these wild lands is astounding, but with over four million visitors a year it's necessary. Part of me yearned to visit the Yosemite of 1890, before it was a park and when it was more wild. But I know that without the roads, the tour buses, the gift shops and the picture postcards, there would be no Yosemite at all. We tend to value nature by it's utility to humanity and if Yosemite wasn't a major tourist destination it would have to fill some other use. There is a clear alternative showcased by the valley next door. The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a valley the same size as Yosemite was dammed in 1914, filled up with water and provides water for much of the Bay Area.
In Search of Wilderness
Day 1
After a couple of days in the valley, I went up to Tuolumne Meadows and set out on a three night backpacking trip. I hoped that deeper in the woods, I'd find a more wild Yosemite.
Some of the first snow of the season fell lightly on the first day of my backpacking trip. Day one was the biggest hike of the trip, 15 miles with over 1,700 feet of elevation gain. By the time I got to the camp at Merced Lake, my feet were sore the sun was low in the sky.
Day 2
The morning of the second day of my trip, I was still tired from the first. I debated skipping the extra hard miles that a Half Dome summit would require, but I decided I couldn't miss the opportunity to see one of the park's most iconic features.
I set up camp at the Half Dome trail junction and hiked the out and back of the summit with only the essentials. All the same, it was a big day and had over 3,000 feet of elevation gain. But the opportunity to look over the lip of the valley was worth every step. Although this view too is an iconic Instagram moment, the massive work the glaciers had done in the valley cannot be captured in a photograph.
Day 3
The third day of my trip was another big one, 10 miles with over 3,000 feet of elevation gain. But at this point my body had adapted to the load quite well and I actually felt less tired than I had the day before. I spent my last night in the park on Cathedral Lake.
Day 4
The last day of hiking was by far the shortest of the trip. It was a melancholy trek that paralleled a road for the last couple of miles. Part of me was really looking forward to stopping at a restaurant and eating anything crispy, anything other than rehydrated food. But a bigger part of me wanted to stay out on the trail longer. My mind was so much quieter than it normally is living in San Francisco. In the backcountry the multitude of responsibilities and obligations we have in modern life are stripped away and all that's left is the necessity to hike, set up camp, collect water and cook. Although the scars of humanity were ever present in the form of trials, signs and other backpackers (I never had a campsite to myself), the trip into Tuolumne Meadows was the wilderness experience I had hoped to find at Yosemite. I know I've still reproduced the same photographs as hundreds of hikers before and written here the words that every trekker would think are their own, but what's essential is only available first hand. Now when I look at the screensaver on my Macbook, I don't just see the valley. I can feel the weight of the pack on my shoulders that I carried for forty miles, the taste of rehydrated MountainHouse Indian Food, the cold of early season snow. I know what lies beyond the border of the photograph.