
His digital took many of the photographs in this entry; my film camera took the rest. You can tell the difference by clicking on the photographs to access higher resolution versions. Mine show film grains when examined closely; his are more obviously pixelated.

Trees

According to plaques placed in a grove that housed several of these amazing giants, Sequoias usually die because they uproot themselves. They grow too large and heavy for their root systems to remain stable. Below, you can see an example of such an overwhelmed root system with several humans for scale. I am the one in the yellow shirt.
I also reflect on the somber realization that, as John Polkinghorn says in Belief in God in an Age of Science, “mortality characterises the whole universe itself.” If we wait far beyond the lifetimes of humans and trees, even the stars will die. However, I take great comfort in my faith that mortality is not the end of the story.
Valley

For some sense of scale, look for the parked cars in the lower right portion of the photograph.


Sweeping views of majestic granite formations stretching to the horizon were common in the park. When I can afford I wider angle lens than I currently have, I will probably buy one for vistas like this.
Camping
We cooked our dinner over the campfire. Our meal included hot dogs, bratwurst, and baked beans. I cooked the bratwurst, and it was very good. The beans were also delicious, but problems arose when we realized the no one had brought spoons.
We improvised by slicing a plastic water bottle in to pieces.
The solution was crude but effective.
This is one view from the top of the dome which is 8,122 ft (2,476 m) above sea level. It was the highest altitude we reached at Yosemite. Notice small yellow-brown object on the rock near the bottom of the photograph.
Closer inspection reveals that it is a small rodent something like a chipmunk. We saw several of these scurrying around the park.
Jonathan and Kristyn are sitting on the remains of a tree that gave Sentinel Dome some of its fame.
We posed for a somewhat unusual group photograph on top of the dome.
Click on the image above to see a panorama of the view from atop Sentinel Dome
Half Dome is probably the most famous attraction in Yosemite. It appears on the California state quarter. We did not have time (and I, at least, did not have them ambition) to climb it.
El Capitan is another famous Yosemite rock formation that I will always associate with a falling Capt. Kirk.
Yosemite is also famous for its waterfalls, although we arrived at the wrong time of year to see them at full flow. Two of them appear as white threads against the rock in the photograph above. At left is a photograph of Bridal Veil Fall. Apparently, at maximum flow, it is wide enough to spray all of the black rock that you can see behind the fall. I am not sure how, bu the water is responsible for darkening the rock.
One advantage of arriving when the fall was flowing lightly was that we could scramble over boulders all the way to the base. Using a convenient boulder as a mount for my camera, I captured the group photograph below. This was among the last sights we saw during our trip, which is why some of us look rather tired and disheveled, especially my hair.