Meadow Fire Smoke Plume. Yosemite National Park, California. September 7, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Thick smoke from the September 2014 Yosemite National Park Meadow Fire drifts over the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, blotting out the afternoon sun.
Today’s “Morning Musing” post will take the form of a second “photo of the day,” but with a bit of back-story about what you are seeing.
Last weekend a wildfire suddenly appeared in a popular area of the Yosemite backcountry along the Merced River drainage above Yosemite Valley, roughly between Half Dome, Clouds Rest, and Mount Starr King. I was not in the area of the fire, but further north in a different backcountry area, where our group of photographers had been camped for several days on a high ridge area. On this morning we did see a small “puff” of smoke coming from over the shoulder of Clouds Rest, but it was no larger than other fires that, as is typical this time of year, were burning in various areas of the backcountry.
Our plan was to pack up camp and follow a more-or-less cross-country route into a canyon and on to a new camp that night. We loaded up and set out, and by the time we were half way to our goal the smoke plume has begun to stretch across the sky above our position, thought it was still quite diluted. However, very soon the winds whipped up to a surprising degree and the smoke suddenly became a lot thicker and began to blot out the sun and drop ash on us. By this time we were in a valley and could no longer see the location of the fire, but it was plainly apparent that this fire was roaring and likely to become a very serious matter.
This photograph has not been color corrected at all. This is, in fact, what the atmosphere in and above the canyon looked like! Fortuitously, later that evening as we sat around in camp, we saw a flash in the sky and heard thunder… and before long light rains arrived and continued into the next afternoon.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
