Yosemite: Around Cook’s Meadow

(Continued from Yosemite: Along the Lower Fall Trail)

Featured Photo: “Half Dome, Cook’s Meadow” Yosemite National Park, California—2023

After the bus left, with my sister on board, I crossed the road and started walking toward the beautiful meadow, enjoying the view. I paused to look at my watch: 9:00 AM; I had until 9:30 before I had to get back to the Yosemite Valley Shuttle Bus Stop #6. As I walked along the road bordering the meadow, I surveyed how dramatically the sunlight affected the valley. Looking toward the north-west, the sun provided a vivid image, lighting the trees and granite peaks in a warm golden glow beneath the blue sky.

But looking across the meadow in the opposite direction, the sun had risen high enough in the south-east that it was difficult to observe for long. The glare resulted in pictures that were washed out—nearly colorless—the granite cliffs shrouded in hazy shadows, the sun a natural backlight over the meadow.

Between these bearings, gazing along the meadow’s length, the sunlight afforded a compromise between light and shadow, which was somewhat kinder to my photographer’s eye. I was fascinated by two objects in particular: a tree that stood alone in the meadow, and the distant view of Half Dome. I zoomed in on the tree—the cool Autumn weather having turned its leaves amber and brown—and took a picture…

…then zoomed out for a wider view, to capture today’s Featured Photo, showing more trees at the meadow’s edge. I walked farther along the trail, continually looking toward the solitary tree from different vantage points, displaying distinctive lighting effects…

…and eventually used my iPhone’s panorama mode to capture the widest image of the meadow that I could.

I must have paused longer and taken more photos than I realized. I glanced at my watch, surprised that I had been walking nearly 20 minutes already, but had not progressed far at all. I needed to get back to the shuttle stop in 10 more minutes. I picked up my pace, as I wanted to reach a section of the trail with a boardwalk that cut across the meadow. Hurrying along, my eye was still drawn to that single tree, now viewed from a different location, with new elements added to the still-life.

I continued to look up and out at the views, but also remembered to look down occasionally, since beauty—and photo ops—can be found up-close, as well.

When I got to the start of the enticing boardwalk pathway, I hesitated…

…I had only three minutes to get back to meet my sister returning from her shuttle tour. Although nearly out of time, I was having too much fun taking photographs in the meadow, and decided to press on. Midway across the boardwalk, I captured a different view of Half Dome with a row of evergreen trees standing in the foreground.

Reaching the far side of the meadow, I turned to look again at the solitary tree. It seemed almost lost from view, its colors sun-bleached and blending into the bright background.

As I started to retrace my path, I took one more picture of the meadow, trees, and boardwalk, with a thin line of water from Yosemite Fall trickling down the granite face in the distance. I said to myself I would come back later, to share the beauty of this alluring trail with my sister.

I was now walking quite quickly toward our rendezvous point, but still couldn’t refrain from snapping the occasional photo; in one image, it seemed the jagged tops of the sunlit trees in the foreground almost mirrored the outline of the shadowy granite peaks behind.

I took pictures looking back across the meadow…

…in both directions…

…and through the branches of a tree.

Earlier, when my sister began her bus tour through Yosemite Valley, I told her I’d be back in half an hour. I was mortified that I’d been gone for a full hour; I was 30 minutes late returning to the shuttle stop, and hoped she would not be too upset about my delay. But my sister was nowhere to be seen. I assumed she must have grown impatient—tired of waiting for me to come back—and headed off somewhere on her own, to find something to do. I walked around in the general area, not too far from the shuttle stop, taking a few more pictures to help pass the time until she might return. I grew more concerned as the minutes passed and still, she did not appear. Once or twice, a bus came by and stopped; I watched hopefully as the passengers unloaded, but my sister was not among them.

After waiting 30 minutes myself, I began to wonder how we might meet up again, since we had no reliable means of communication. Then I saw another bus pull into the shuttle stop; it was 10:30 AM—a full hour-and-a half since the bus left—and I finally saw my sister step off. I was relieved, not only to be reunited, but because she had been gone even longer than me. She looked a bit agitated and said to me, “Well, that trip certainly took longer than 30 minutes. Sorry I’m late.” I replied sheepishly, “That’s okay. I was a bit late myself.”

I asked what happened and my sister told her side of the story: “How could I know there were two bus routes around Yosemite Valley? I swear we were told the ride would be 30 minutes, but I started to suspect it might be longer when the driver kept telling people, as they tried to get on, ‘No, you want the purple bus.’ The driver also kept stopping to yell at people parked illegally in the bus zones, and threatened to call the park rangers; she finally did just that. Oh, and there was a nice, but talkative lady sitting next to me on the bus who showed me a great video she had taken on her phone of the ‘managed fire’ in the valley last night. I almost asked her to air-drop it to me, until I realized that was probably not a good idea. But I did get to see more of the valley on that bus ride than I knew was there!”

It was only later, after our vacation was over, that we found out the purple bus—which the driver kept recommending to other potential passengers—followed a shorter route, only going to the more popular stops in the eastern part of Yosemite Valley. The green bus—which my sister had taken—went to all the stops in the entire valley. Had I made plans for us to ride on the shuttle bus, we might have already seen the map—which is available on the National Park Service website—that showed the short and long routes.

But having finally been reunited that Saturday morning, my sister and I both had a good laugh about our separate adventures, then decided to recover with a cup of coffee in the nearby Yosemite Village. As we headed out, I said I would show her some of the pictures I had taken during my extended walk through the meadow. Later that day, while we were in the Village, I learned the place where I’d been walking and taking photographs was called Cook’s Meadow.

Before the day was over, I would return to Cook’s Meadow—not just once, but twice. And each time, I would be struck by the dramatic effect the sunlight had on what I saw and photographed.

(To be continued…)