… campground. [ shines flashlight under chin ]
Gather ‘round for a tale of the cursed campground, where no visitors may make shelter. Well, okay, really just me.
I first visited White Wolf in 2014 with Yosemite Outdoor Adventures and loved it right away. It’s about halfway between Crane Flat and Tuolumne Meadows along Tioga Pass Road, at around 8,000’ elevation. The camp sites are fairly small and there aren’t a lot of trees (so not much shade). But it’s bordered by the Middle Fork of the Tuolumne River on one side (just a couple miles from the headwaters) and a really nice meadow complex on the other side. There are great birds — several high Sierra specialties! — to be found in the surrounding woods and meadows (including White-headed Woodpeckers, one of my favorites). You can understand why I went back the following year. And why I was disappointed when it closed for a few years following that for repairs and upgrades to the campground and a small lodge there.
Finally it reopened and I signed up for a class right away. Except there was a lot of snow that winter, and the campground and meadow had flooded and there was still water over the campground road. The class went on, but we stayed at Tuolumne Meadows. (Okay, not the worst outcome.) Since then, classes have been cancelled by COVID, relocated to Tuolumne a second time, and nearly didn’t happen last year because of fires elsewhere in the park. It was touch-and-go until the last minute because they weren’t sure if the smoke conditions would make hiking unsafe. By then, I’d decided not to go - I’d just recovered from COVID and high elevation + smoke + residual sluggishness seemed like a bad combo. * sigh *
But hope springs eternal and, when this year’s classes were announced last November, I figured third fifth time’s a charm and signed up.
So…. it snowed last winter. And kept on snowing. Tioga Pass Road finally opened last weekend (usually opens late May/early June). And the campground was still under a few feet of snow at the start of July when they decided to cancel the class. The curse continues.
But I’d already asked for the days off and I was going to relax and have some fun, damn it! The first thing I did was get some symphony tickets for Thursday night — Sibelius Second Violin Concerto and Elgar’s Enigma Variations, something I’ve long wanted to see but was going to have to miss since I’d be camping. Okay, that took away some of the sting.
We started looking for possible camping alternatives. Pinnacles? We didn’t make a trip in April as we’ve done in recent years. Sites were available. Ah, probably available because of the daytime highs of 107. Nope. A staycation it is!
In some ways it was a relief, there was a lot going on at work and and maybe it would be helpful to put in a few hours at the office on Thursday. I was still trying to make up my mind when a coworker texted a video — a huge juvenile redtail was sitting in the workyard out back, devouring an enormous rat while sitting on a toolbox. People were welding, driving a bucket truck, running power tools — the young tail paid them no mind. OK, I was going to the office, and now racing to get there early.
I tried to get a look into the work yard as I parked — maybe she was still there. Some Mockingbirds were losing their shit in the tree above me, so I glanced up to see if they could point me where the hawk was. I couldn’t see them though because the she was right overhead blocking the view. Whoa!
I ended up not getting a lot done that morning (but enough). Everyone wanted to see the bird, or show me their photos of the bird or ask questions about the bird. (They know of my obsessions.) Everyone was happy to hear that our office is poison free (my doing) so this bird that had enchanted them had a safe meal. She has returned a few times since then, as have some adults — presumably her parents.
If we couldn’t camp, Nancy and I still wanted to do something so on Friday we hit the DeYoung Museum for two shows that we’ve been wanting to see, “Ansel Adams in Our Time” (it’s open for one more week) and “Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Science“ (through October 15).
The Adams show wasn’t just his work; about half of the photos were by other artists, both before Adam’s time and modern. Of course Yosemite and the Sierra featured prominently; it was a brief virtual camping trip. There were some really great pieces. My favorites were by Abelardo Morell (see more about the Snake River photo here) but there were a half-dozen other artists that stopped us in our tracks.
I have long admired Wiley’s work but it has always been via photos — this was my first time seeing it in person. His work was amazing, and all the more so because it was a creative burst over a fairly short period starting in the summer of 2020; they speak to violence toward, and murder of, Black people. The pieces are based on classical paintings and sculptures, with real people from the streets of Senegal (where he was living during the pandemic) posed as the central figures. His work is incredibly beautiful and he has an eye for the smallest detail, bringing these still figures vividly to life. I have read some critiques that say he takes an ugly truth and makes it pretty; that’s fair. But to me the effect was that the images and sculptures were so well done that I lingered on each piece and drank it all in — but the whole time there was no escaping the truth at heart of this beautiful object. It’s easy to look away from a terrible photo or horrifying story so it’s easier to put it out of mind. When you want to keep looking at it, you have to keep thinking about it. (I’m not explaining that well, but I hope you get my meaning.)
Our day was only half done, so we decided to do some birding in the afternoon. First stop, the continuing Red-headed Woodpecker; Nancy had been away when it first showed up and hadn’t yet seen it. In contrast to the mob scene during its first few days, we sat alone in one of its usual spots and waited for it to make the rounds. Another guy, who lives nearby, showed up about 20 minutes after we sat down and went to the bird’s other favorite spot. We all agreed to notify each other if it showed up. Nancy and I continued our chat for another 20 minutes or more, then went to the other guy’s spot; we’d head out if it was not around.
The guy said, “well, there’s a red-headed bird in that tree” but we couldn’t be annoyed that he didn’t call us over because it was a Turkey Vulture. Just then a second red-headed bird flew into a treetop and we let out a (quiet) whoop because it was a Red-headed bird. We had lovely looks at it, then followed it back to our previous spot as we headed back to the car. (The bird hasn’t been seen for about a week now.)
I decided to spend Saturday doing some long-postponed chores and reward myself with something fun on Sunday. Perhaps I should just check Sialia and see if anything cool is turning up on the local lists… Oh! Lookie! A notice that there are two last-minute seats available on a Farallones boat trip with Alvaro’s Adventures. Okay, not Yosemite’s falls, but still lots of water. I signed up. (And I got my chores done)
It was only after signing up that I thought about checking the forecast and it sounded like it could be rough. And while the rest of country was sweltering, we were deep under fog banks. So maybe not 100% optimal but it was supposed to be a great breeding year so I was eager to see it first-hand.
The wind and waves were not as bad as I’d feared. Though none of my friends could make it on such short notice, there were plenty of good people to hang out with during the trip out to the islands — locals that I knew from Christmas Counts and other encounters, and some visitors from out of state. It was really fun talking to a couple from Chicago, knowing that they’d easily get half a dozen lifers and maybe more.
For most of the ride, we were seeing gulls, cormorants, pelicans and murres. The murres kept increasing as we got closer to the islands and we started seeing some young ones in the mix. Then we started seeing shearwaters and auklets and everyone’s favorites — puffins. Although you can’t land on the islands unless you’re working there, the catamaran that Alvaro takes allows incredibly close approaches to the shore. The birds and marine mammals aren’t disturbed as we drift by just a hundred yards away or so.
The first stop was Sugarloaf a large islet, white with guano, and covered with thousands of birds. Among the murres and cormorants, a few Tufted Puffins could be spotted on the rock face. But wee didn’t need to scan the cliff too intently — they were also in the water around us, and flying by. We had quite a good puffin day, even seeing some out beyond the continental shelf.
We drifted slowly across Fisherman’s Bay toward the main island, where the lighthouse is located. This brought us closer to the Common Murre breeding colony. It’s something that has to be seen (and heard and smelled) to be believed — hundreds of thousands of the birds breed on these islands, with most of them in an area below the lighthouse. In the waters just off the shore, recent fledglings were following adults and looking for a meal. There were also a number of Pigeon Guillemots with their young.
We continued clockwise around the islands, passing the houses and stopping briefly at Maintop Island to see the Fur Seal colony and the lone Northern Gannett in the entire Pacific Ocean. It has been in the area for 11 years now, shuttling between the islands and the coast of Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo. From there we headed to the continental shelf (just a few more miles) and looked for deepwater birds and whales. We had great looks at one adult black-footed albatross who sailed effortlessly behind us for a while, then settled on the water behind us. On the return trip, we had a quartet of humpback whales swimming near us for about half an hour.
Not bad for a staycation, all in all. What’s new in your area?