Yosemite: Tenaya Lake (West Shore)

(Continued from Yosemite: Olmsted Point (Jr.))

Featured Photo: “Reflection on Tenaya Lake”  Yosemite National Park, California—2023

Despite its towering height of nearly 11,000 feet, Mt. Hoffmann does not even make the list of the thirty tallest peaks in Yosemite National Park. Yet standing on Hoffmann’s summit in 1869, surveying the glorious landscapes around him, a 31-year-old John Muir mused that it was the highest point yet climbed in his life’s journey. His book, “My First Summer in the Sierra”, published in 1911, described that experience, drawn from the diaries he kept. With radiant and eloquent prose, the Scottish immigrant to America detailed all he saw that day: the plants, the animals, and the other mountains that were even higher than Hoffmann, “serene, majestic, snow-laden, sundrenched, vast domes and ridges shining below them, forests, lakes, and meadows in the hollows.”

From Mt. Hoffmann, it is roughly three miles to Tenaya Lake, which Muir described as the largest of the many glacier lakes in sight (about a mile long) and “the one with the finest shore scenery…with an imposing mountain dipping its feet into it on the south side, Cathedral Peak a few miles above its head, many smooth swelling rock-waves and domes on the north, and in the distance southward a multitude of snowy peaks, the fountain heads of rivers.”

Setting out from his camp the following day, after having viewed the alpine lake from Mt. Hoffmann, Muir’s diary entry read, “Up and away to Lake Tenaya, another big day, enough for a lifetime. The rocks, the air, everything speaking with audible voice or silent; joyful, wonderful, enchanting, banishing weariness and sense of time.”

On our trip to Yosemite, my sister and I were inspired, but not tempted by Muir’s remarkable feat of scaling the rather inaccessible Mt. Hoffmann to take in the views. Instead, we had chosen a more easily reached vantage point—Olmsted Point—and having just viewed the sights, were now setting out ourselves to see Tenaya Lake, which was less than two miles away. Still, it took 15 minutes for us to travel the short distance because, like Muir before us, we stopped along the way to survey the glorious landscapes.

Driving on Tioga Road in Yosemite’s aptly described “high country”, we were virtually surrounded by glacially-shaped domes. Two days prior, we had first observed the high country’s many peaks and domes—far off in the distance—as we admired the spectacular view of Half Dome from Glacier Point.

But now, with the domes up close and rising all around us from the valleys, it felt rather like we were flying among the clouds in the sky; we certainly had the altitude at more than 8,000 feet, and even the cold, solid granite domes seemed to take on the appearance of light, puffy cumulus clouds.

After our brief stop, we arrived at the first of two parking lots for Tenaya Lake—the one at the western end—and this was the first photo I took…

…capturing in a modern, digital photo file, the same magnificent lake, majestic peaks, and vast domes Muir had observed and written about more than 150 years earlier. iPhone in hand, I knew I was in for a real treat!

Geologically, Tenaya Lake was created by the Tenaya Glacier—the same glacier that created Half Dome—as it flowed out of the vast Tuolumne Ice Sheet and down to Yosemite Valley. Historically, the lake was named after Chief Tenaya, the last leader of the native Ahwahneechee people who lived in Yosemite. Wikipedia suggests, however, the chief may have objected to the appellation, since “the lake already had a name: Pywiack or ‘Lake of the Shining Rocks’.”

It was reported that old Chief Tenaya was good to his tribe. However, his death seems cloaked in mystery; the tales are confusing and contradictory, and apparently related to either: 1) the presumed murder by the Indians of some prospectors in search of gold and silver in Yosemite Valley; or 2) possibly punishment by soldiers charged to protect Yosemite for the Indians’ cattle-stealing and other crimes; or 3) perhaps in a dispute with another Indian tribe over stolen horses; or 4) maybe the result of a gambling game that got out of hand. Whatever the true cause, and with a gentle nod to his demise, Muir celebrated the Chief’s connection with Tenaya Lake: “A fine monument the old man has in this bright lake, and likely to last a long time, though lakes die as well as Indians.”

As my sister and I started walking along the shore of this “fine monument”, I paused periodically to get a snapshot of the glorious views of the lake and multiple domes, initially from a rocky shoreline…

…eventually reaching a small, sandy beach…

…where I lingered for a while, taking several pictures, attempting to capture the beauty. I consider today’s Featured Photo (at the top of this post) one of the best I took while we were viewing the scenery from this stretch of Tenaya Lake’s shoreline. The rocks, which are up close and just beneath the surface of the clear, shallow water, seem to balance in both color and weight the more distant, towering granite domes beyond the opposite shore. There’s a splash of green from the forest of lodgepole pines, with an azure sky; and as a bonus, there’s a nearly perfect reflection in the lake, doubling the splendor with a virtual mirror-image of the natural world.

Due to the expansive view of the lake and its surroundings, my natural inclination was to take photos in a horizontal “landscape” orientation…

…then zooming-in to crop the view…

…until my creative curiosity eventually led me to rotate my camera/phone by 90 degrees to change the perspective, focusing on the scenery using a vertical “portrait” orientation.

In another sequence, I concentrated on the nearer dome to the left, with the rocks beside the shore jutting above the water to give visual balance. I took a landscape photo, which seemed to evoke a serene sense of the setting…

…then a portrait photo that provided a more constrained feeling—bordering on claustrophobic—the result of losing the perspective of the surrounding, wider shoreline.

As we continued to walk along, taking in the total expanse of the lake and its shore, I felt the need to use my iPhone’s panorama mode—as I had at Cook’s Meadow the day before—to capture the widest view I could.

Walking farther beside the lake shore, we passed some curious-looking tree stumps…

…and gnarled roots…

…with wood that was weathered and worn. Their appearance seemed rather like driftwood, but that made no sense for the remnants of trees that were still protruding from the sand. They did, however, make for interesting photos.

Farther still, we came across a similarly weathered, fallen tree trunk extending out over the water, adding an interesting element to the lake photos.

And somewhere along the way, my sister offered to take a picture of me, with the clear water exhibiting a near-rainbow of colors from tawny to green to blue, then reflecting the opposite shoreline, with green pines, and grayish-white domes, all forming the background for my portrait.

We stayed only 20 minutes, soaking in the grand views, before deciding to drive on. We had more of Tioga Road to travel if we were going to reach the park’s eastern entrance and the town of Lee Vining. Also, we were both getting hungry—the warmed-up breakfast sandwiches we ate back in our hotel room seemed so long ago—and we had planned to stop for a modest picnic lunch at the other end of the lake.

Just before we got back in the car to leave the west end of Tenaya Lake, I took one last photo near the parking area.

There must have been something about the small, lonely pine tree darkened by shadows, contrasting the sunlit image of the lake and all its surroundings that captivated me; my final picture was nearly identical to the first photo I took when we arrived. We would soon see that the eastern shore provided a somewhat different view of beautiful Tenaya Lake.

(To be continued…)