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While at a roadside pullout along Alberta Highway 93A with a view looking up and to the southeast at a contrail that was seemingly heading to the sun in the skies above. This was near Leach Lake in Jasper National Park.
Elephant rock pullout km 221.2
Elephants were once common in the Yukon, in the days of woolly mammoths, which was as recent as 8,000 years ago. Now, only deep- buried bones remain as evidence of this extinct life form. Use your binoculars (and imagination) and look southeast across the river to the top of the distant mountain ridge. There you will see a very elephantine-looking rock. Nature has carved a tor into the shape of an elephant, complete with a clearly defined trunk.
Dempster Highway 2017
Sneaking under the wire for Fence Friday tonight. I wasn't going to post at all, but remembered this image from Ireland. It was taken near Conor Pass, which is a marvel in itself. I had parked in a tiny pullout (along a stretch of road that allowed only one car to pass at a time... when two cars met, one had to back up into the nearest pullout to allow the other to pass) and climbed this hill for a better view of the road and fog. I spent about ten minutes up there by myself, perched on the hillside, watching the occasional car creep cautiously along the road below but, for the most part, just taking in the moment.
Though I enjoyed the fog, I couldn't help but be wistful... someday I would like to stand along Conor Pass during sunset. This desire began when I wandered into a gallery in Killarney, and stumbled across this image by Peter Cox.
Image made with a Hasselblad 500 C/M.
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of the auroras on our Solar System’s largest planet. The dancing lights observed on Jupiter are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth.
These observations of Jupiter’s auroras (shown on the left of the above image) were captured with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) on 25 December 2023 (F335M filter). Scientists found that the emission from the trihydrogen ion, known as H3+, is far more variable than previously believed. H3+ is created by the impact of high energy electrons on molecular hydrogen. Because this emission shines brightly in the infrared, Webb’s instruments are well equipped to observe it. The image on the right shows the planet Jupiter to indicate the location of the observed auroras, which was originally published in 2023 (F164N, F212N, and F360M filters).
A video of these observations can be found here.
[Image description: On the right is the planet Jupiter as seen in near-infrared light. Its clouds are dark blue and white in colour, with some red spots within the clouds, while its poles are tinged with green, yellow and red. A box over the north pole is overlain with more data in shades of orange, displaying aurorae as arcs and rings on the planet. To left, this area is shown larger in size and captioned “09:53:57 25 Dec. 2023”.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ricardo Hueso (UPV), Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Thierry Fouchet (Observatory of Paris), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), J. Nichols (University of Leicester), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb); CC BY 4.0
While at a roadside pullout along Alberta Highway 93A with a view looking to the west at male deer enjoying some leaves from a nearby tree. Avoiding getting any closer, I zoomed in with the focal length and attempted to capture any image when the head and antlers were more visible, given that much of the deer was behind this one tree.
PCC 1080 (Los Angeles Transit Lines) is a pullout car, in service.F-Line cars resumed service 10 days prior. May, 25, 2021.© 2021 Peter Ehrlich
While at a roadside pullout along the Going-to-the-Sun Road with a view looking to the southeast across a nearby forest and then mountainside with Haystack Butte, Pollock Mountain, Clements Mountain, and Mount Oberlin as a backdrop. This is in Glacier National Park.
This granite boulder created a tunnel over the Generals Highway until the road was rerouted. If you want to take a closer look, accessible parking and a paved path provide easy access to the old roadway beneath Tunnel Rock.
The KNP Complex Fire: A Variety of Fire Effects
Both above Tunnel Rock and across the river, you can see a mixture of how the 2021 KNP Complex Fire affected the vegetation. Notice a mosaic of live trees and shrubs, patches of fire-killed vegetation, and other areas where only bare, blackened ground remains. As time passes new plants will sprout in most of these bare areas.
These different burn patterns resulted from a variety of fire behavior (or how the fire burned). In places, light upcanyon winds may have pushed the fire cross-slope or it may have backed down the hillside at lower intensity. Further upcanyon, areas with no vegetation and exposed rock are places where flammable shrubs burned at higher intensity. Look on the slope below the pullout for a buckeye tree re-sprouting from its base and other plant re-growth.
Beware the three-leaved plant that grows here! Touching it can cause an intensely itchy rash. Even in winter when twigs are bare, oils from this plant can transfer from the plant to hands, clothing, and anything that touches it.
Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, to protect 404,064 acres (631 sq mi; 163,519 ha; 1,635 km2) of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing a vertical relief of nearly 13,000 feet (4,000 m), the park contains the highest point in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet (4,421 m) above sea level. The park is south of, and contiguous with, Kings Canyon National Park; both parks are administered by the National Park Service together as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. UNESCO designated the areas as Sequoia-Kings Canyon Biosphere Reserve in 1976.
The park is notable for its giant sequoia trees, including the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on Earth by volume. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five of the ten largest trees in the world. The Giant Forest is connected by the Generals Highway to Kings Canyon National Park's General Grant Grove, home of the General Grant tree among other giant sequoias. The park's giant sequoia forests are part of 202,430 acres (316 sq mi; 81,921 ha; 819 km2) of old-growth forests shared by Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. The parks preserve a landscape that was first cultivated by the Monachee tribe, the southern Sierra Nevada before Euro-American settlement.
The national park was partially closed in September 2020 due to the Sequoia Complex wildfire, and again from mid-September through mid-December 2021 due to the KNP Complex Fire.
Many park visitors enter Sequoia National Park through its southern entrance near the town of Three Rivers at Ash Mountain at 1,700 ft (520 m) elevation. The lower elevations around Ash Mountain contain the only National Park Service-protected California Foothills ecosystem, consisting of blue oak woodlands, foothills chaparral, grasslands, yucca plants, and steep, mild river valleys. Seasonal weather results in a changing landscape throughout the foothills with hot summer yielding an arid landscape while spring and winter rains result in blossoming wildflowers and lush greens. The region is also home to abundant wildlife: bobcats, foxes, ground squirrels, rattlesnakes, and mule deer are commonly seen in this area, and more rarely, reclusive mountain lions and the Pacific fisher are seen as well. The last California grizzly was killed in this park in 1922 (at Horse Corral Meadow). The California Black Oak is a key transition species between the chaparral and higher elevation conifer forest.
At higher elevations in the front country, between 5,500 and 9,000 feet (1,700 and 2,700 m) in elevation, the landscape becomes montane forest-dominated coniferous belt. Found here are Ponderosa, Jeffrey, sugar, and lodgepole pine trees, as well as abundant white and red fir. Found here too are the giant sequoia trees, the most massive living single-stem trees on earth. Between the trees, spring and summer snowmelts sometimes fan out to form lush, though delicate, meadows. In this region, visitors often see mule deer, Douglas squirrels, and American black bears, which sometimes break into unattended cars to eat food left by careless visitors. There are plans to reintroduce the bighorn sheep to this park.
The vast majority of the park is roadless wilderness; no road crosses the Sierra Nevada within the park's boundaries. 84 percent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is designated wilderness and is accessible only by foot or by horseback. The majority was designated Sequoia-Kings Canyon Wilderness in 1984 and the southwest portion was protected as John Krebs Wilderness in 2009.
Sequoia's backcountry offers a vast expanse of high-alpine wonders. Covering the highest-elevation region of the High Sierra, the backcountry includes Mount Whitney on the eastern border of the park, accessible from the Giant Forest via the High Sierra Trail. On a traveler's path along this 35-mile (56 km) backcountry trail, one passes through about 10 miles (16 km) of montane forest before reaching the backcountry resort of Bearpaw Meadow, just short of the Great Western Divide.
Continuing along the High Sierra Trail over the Great Western Divide via Kaweah Gap, one passes from the Kaweah River Drainage, with its characteristic V-shaped river valleys, and into the Kern River drainage, where an ancient fault line has aided glaciers in the last ice age to create a U-shaped canyon that is almost perfectly straight for nearly 20 miles (32 km). On the floor of this canyon, at least two days hike from the nearest road, is the Kern Canyon hot spring, a popular resting point for weary backpackers. From the floor of Kern Canyon, the trail ascends again over 8,000 ft (2,400 m) to the summit of Mount Whitney. At Mount Whitney, the High Sierra Trail meets with the John Muir Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, which continue northward along the Sierra crest and into the backcountry of Kings Canyon National Park.
The area which now is Sequoia National Park shows evidence of Native American settlement as early as 1000 A.D.[ The area was first home to "Monachee" (Western Mono) Native Americans, who resided mainly in the Kaweah River drainage in the Foothills region of what is now the park, though evidence of seasonal habitation exists as high as the Giant Forest. Members of this tribe were permanent residents of the park, with a population estimate of around 2,000. In the summertime the Tubatulabal Native Americans used the eastern part of the area (the Kern River drainage) as their summer hunting grounds. During this time, the Western Mono tribe would travel over the high mountain passes to trade with tribes to the East. To this day, pictographs can be found at several sites within the park, notably at Hospital Rock and Potwisha, as well as bedrock mortars used to process acorns, a staple food for the Monachee people.
The first European settler to homestead in the area was Hale Tharp, who famously built a home out of a hollowed-out fallen giant sequoia log in the Giant Forest next to Log Meadow. Tharp arrived in 1858 to the region and encountered several groups of Native Americans, the largest being around 600 with several other smaller groups found at higher elevations. After becoming friendly with the Western Mono tribe, Tharp was shown the Giant Forest Sequoia Grove. After his settlement, more settlers came around 1860. Shortly thereafter - between 1860 and 1863, epidemics of smallpox, measles, and scarlet fever killed the majority of the Native Americans living in the area. After this, the rest of the Native Americans left with the largest campsite (Hospital Rock) abandoned by 1865. During their time in the area, the Monachee used periodic fire burning to aid in hunting and agriculture. This technique played an important role in the ecology of the region and allowed for a "natural" vegetation cover development. After they left, Tharp and other settlers allowed sheep and cattle to graze the meadow, while at the same time maintaining a respect for the grandeur of the forest and led early battles against logging in the area. From time to time, Tharp received visits from John Muir, who would stay at Tharp's log cabin. Tharp's Log can still be visited today in its original location in the Giant Forest.
However, Tharp's attempts to conserve the giant sequoias were at first met with only limited success. In the 1880s, white settlers seeking to create a utopian society founded the Kaweah Colony, which sought economic success in trading Sequoia timber. However, Giant Sequoia trees, unlike their coast redwood relatives, were later discovered to splinter easily and therefore were ill-suited to timber harvesting, though thousands of trees were felled before logging operations finally ceased. The National Park Service incorporated the Giant Forest into Sequoia National Park in 1890, the year of its founding, promptly ceasing all logging operations in the Giant Forest.
Another consequence of the Giant Forest becoming Sequoia National Park was the shift in park employment. Prior to the incorporation by the National Park Service, the park was managed by US army troops of the 24th Regiment of Infantry and the 9th Regiment of Cavalry, better known as the Buffalo Soldiers. These segregated troops, founded in 1866, were African-American men from the South, an invaluable demographic to the military with the lowest rates of desertion. The Buffalo Soldiers completed park infrastructure projects as well as park management duties, helping to shape the role of the modern-day park ranger. The Buffalo Soldiers rose to this position due to a lack of funding for the park which led to an inability to hire civilians. The third African American West Point graduate, Captain Charles Young led the cavalries of Buffalo Soldiers in the Sequoia and General Grant Parks. Young landed this post as a result of the segregation rampant throughout the Army: as a black man, he was not permitted to head any combat units. He did, however, demonstrate his leadership capability through his initiatives in the National Park delegating park infrastructure projects, hosting tourists and politicians, and setting a standard of a strong work ethic into his men. Young was also a prominent figure regarding the early conservation of Sequoia National Park. He greenlighted the dedication of trees in honor of prominent figures as a means of promoting their preservation. One such example is the Redwood dedicated to the escaped slave and activist, Booker T Washington. Young also argued to the Secretary of the Interior that the lack of enforcement of forest protection laws allowed the detrimental practices of logging and the popular tourist hobby of carving names into the redwoods to continue. To combat this, Young increased patrolling of troops around heavily trafficked areas and initiated a proposal to buy out private landowners surrounding Sequoia to further buffer the protected area.
The land buyouts Young initiated were just the beginning of increasing the area of Sequoia National Park. The park has expanded several times over the decades to its present size; one of the most significant expansions took place in 1926 and was advocated for by Susan Thew Parks. One of the most recent expansions occurred in 1978, when grassroots efforts, spearheaded by the Sierra Club, fought off attempts by the Walt Disney Corporation to purchase a high-alpine former mining site south of the park for use as a ski resort. This site known as Mineral King was annexed to the park. Its name dates back to early 1873 when the miners in the area formed the Mineral King Mining District. Mineral King is the highest-elevation developed site within the park and a popular destination for backpackers.
Sequoia National Park contains a significant portion of the Sierra Nevada. The park's mountainous landscape includes the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, which rises to 14,505 feet (4,421 m) above sea level. The Great Western Divide parallels the Sierran crest and is visible at various places in the park, for example, Mineral King, Moro Rock, and the Giant Forest. Peaks in the Great Western Divide rise to more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m). Deep canyons lie between the mountains, including Tokopah Valley above Lodgepole, Deep Canyon on the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River, and Kern Canyon in the park's backcountry, which is more than 5,000 feet (1,500 m) deep for 30 miles (48 km).
Most of the mountains and canyons in the Sierra Nevada are composed of granitic rocks. These rocks, such as granite, diorite and monzonite, formed when molten rock cooled far beneath the surface of the earth. The molten rock was the result of a geologic process known as subduction. Powerful forces in the earth forced the landmass under the waters of the Pacific Ocean beneath and below an advancing North American Continent. Super-hot water driven from the subducting ocean floor migrated upward and melted rock as it proceeded. This process took place during the Cretaceous Period, 100 million years ago. Granitic rocks have a speckled salt-and-pepper appearance because they contain various minerals including quartz, feldspars and micas. Valhalla, or the Angel Wings, are prominent granitic cliffs that rise above the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River.
The Sierra Nevada is a young mountain range, probably not more than 10 million years old. Forces in the earth, probably associated with the development of the Great Basin, forced the mountains to rise. During the last 10 million years, at least four ice ages have coated the mountains in a thick mantle of ice. Glaciers form and develop during long periods of cool and wet weather. Glaciers move very slowly through the mountains, carving deep valleys and craggy peaks. The extensive history of glaciation within the range and the erosion resistant nature of the granitic rocks that make up most of the Sierra Nevada have together created a landscape of hanging valleys, waterfalls, craggy peaks, alpine lakes (such as Tulainyo Lake) and glacial canyons.
Park caves, like most caves in the Sierra Nevada of California, are mostly solutional caves dissolved from marble. Marble rock is essentially limestone that was metamorphosed by the heat and pressure of the formation and uplift of the Sierra Nevada Batholith. The batholith's rapid uplift over the past 10 million years led to a rapid erosion of the metamorphic rocks in the higher elevations, exposing the granite beneath; therefore, most Sierra Nevada caves are found in the middle and lower elevations (below 7,000 ft or 2,100 m), though some caves are found in the park at elevations as high as 10,000 ft (3,000 m) such as the White Chief cave and Cirque Cave in Mineral King. These caves are carved out of the rock by the abundant seasonal streams in the park. Most of the larger park caves have, or have had, sinking streams running through them.
The park contains more than 270 known caves, including Lilburn Cave which is California's longest cave with nearly 17 miles (27 km) of surveyed passages. The only commercial cave open to park visitors is Crystal Cave, the park's second-longest cave at over 3.4 miles (5.5 km). Crystal Cave was discovered on April 28, 1918, by Alex Medley and Cassius Webster. The cave is a constant 48 °F (9 °C), and is only accessible by guided tour.
Caves are discovered every year in the park with the most recently discovered major cave being Ursa Minor in August 2006.
According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S. Potential natural vegetation Types, Sequoia National Park encompasses five classifications listed here from highest to lowest elevation; Alpine tundra & barren vegetation type with an Alpine tundra vegetation form...Pinus contorta/ Subalpine zone vegetation type with a California Conifer Forest vegetation form...Abies magnifica vegetation type with a California Conifer Forest vegetation form...Mixed conifer vegetation type with a California Conifer Forest vegetation form...and Chaparral vegetation type with a California chaparral and woodlands vegetation form.
Animals that inhabit this park are coyote, badger, black bear, bighorn sheep, deer, fox, cougar, eleven species of woodpecker, various species of turtle, three species of owl, opossum, various species of snake, wolverine, beaver, various species of frog, and muskrat.
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2 million residents across a total area of approximately 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7 million residents and the latter having over 9.6 million. Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state and the second most populous city in the country. San Francisco is the second most densely populated major city in the country. Los Angeles County is the country's most populous, while San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the country. California borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; and has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the west.
The economy of the state of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.4 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022. It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy as of 2022, behind Germany and ahead of India, as well as the 37th most populous. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies ($1.0 trillion and $0.5 trillion respectively as of 2020). The San Francisco Bay Area Combined Statistical Area had the nation's highest gross domestic product per capita ($106,757) among large primary statistical areas in 2018, and is home to five of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people.
Prior to European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America and contained the highest Native American population density north of what is now Mexico. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization of California by the Spanish Empire. In 1804, it was included in Alta California province within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its successful war for independence, but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and led to dramatic social and demographic changes, including large-scale immigration into California, a worldwide economic boom, and the California genocide of indigenous people. The western portion of Alta California was then organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850, following the Compromise of 1850.
Notable contributions to popular culture, for example in entertainment and sports, have their origins in California. The state also has made noteworthy contributions in the fields of communication, information, innovation, environmentalism, economics, and politics. It is the home of Hollywood, the oldest and one of the largest film industries in the world, which has had a profound influence upon global entertainment. It is considered the origin of the hippie counterculture, beach and car culture, and the personal computer, among other innovations. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are widely seen as the centers of the global technology and film industries, respectively. California's economy is very diverse: 58% of it is based on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific, and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.S. state. California's ports and harbors handle about a third of all U.S. imports, most originating in Pacific Rim international trade.
The state's extremely diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast and metropolitan areas in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east, and from the redwood and Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. California is well known for its warm Mediterranean climate and monsoon seasonal weather. The large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains.
Settled by successive waves of arrivals during at least the last 13,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population have ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. The indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct ethnic groups, inhabiting environments from mountains and deserts to islands and redwood forests. These groups were also diverse in their political organization, with bands, tribes, villages, and on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash, Pomo and Salinan. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered social and economic relationships between many groups.
The first Europeans to explore the coast of California were the members of a Spanish maritime expedition led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542. Cabrillo was commissioned by Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain, to lead an expedition up the Pacific coast in search of trade opportunities; they entered San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, and reached at least as far north as San Miguel Island. Privateer and explorer Francis Drake explored and claimed an undefined portion of the California coast in 1579, landing north of the future city of San Francisco. Sebastián Vizcaíno explored and mapped the coast of California in 1602 for New Spain, putting ashore in Monterey. Despite the on-the-ground explorations of California in the 16th century, Rodríguez's idea of California as an island persisted. Such depictions appeared on many European maps well into the 18th century.
The Portolá expedition of 1769-70 was a pivotal event in the Spanish colonization of California, resulting in the establishment of numerous missions, presidios, and pueblos. The military and civil contingent of the expedition was led by Gaspar de Portolá, who traveled over land from Sonora into California, while the religious component was headed by Junípero Serra, who came by sea from Baja California. In 1769, Portolá and Serra established Mission San Diego de Alcalá and the Presidio of San Diego, the first religious and military settlements founded by the Spanish in California. By the end of the expedition in 1770, they would establish the Presidio of Monterey and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo on Monterey Bay.
After the Portolà expedition, Spanish missionaries led by Father-President Serra set out to establish 21 Spanish missions of California along El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") and along the Californian coast, 16 sites of which having been chosen during the Portolá expedition. Numerous major cities in California grew out of missions, including San Francisco (Mission San Francisco de Asís), San Diego (Mission San Diego de Alcalá), Ventura (Mission San Buenaventura), or Santa Barbara (Mission Santa Barbara), among others.
Juan Bautista de Anza led a similarly important expedition throughout California in 1775–76, which would extend deeper into the interior and north of California. The Anza expedition selected numerous sites for missions, presidios, and pueblos, which subsequently would be established by settlers. Gabriel Moraga, a member of the expedition, would also christen many of California's prominent rivers with their names in 1775–1776, such as the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. After the expedition, Gabriel's son, José Joaquín Moraga, would found the pueblo of San Jose in 1777, making it the first civilian-established city in California.
The Spanish founded Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776, the third to be established of the Californian missions.
During this same period, sailors from the Russian Empire explored along the northern coast of California. In 1812, the Russian-American Company established a trading post and small fortification at Fort Ross on the North Coast. Fort Ross was primarily used to supply Russia's Alaskan colonies with food supplies. The settlement did not meet much success, failing to attract settlers or establish long term trade viability, and was abandoned by 1841.
During the War of Mexican Independence, Alta California was largely unaffected and uninvolved in the revolution, though many Californios supported independence from Spain, which many believed had neglected California and limited its development. Spain's trade monopoly on California had limited the trade prospects of Californians. Following Mexican independence, Californian ports were freely able to trade with foreign merchants. Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá presided over the transition from Spanish colonial rule to independent.
In 1821, the Mexican War of Independence gave the Mexican Empire (which included California) independence from Spain. For the next 25 years, Alta California remained a remote, sparsely populated, northwestern administrative district of the newly independent country of Mexico, which shortly after independence became a republic. The missions, which controlled most of the best land in the state, were secularized by 1834 and became the property of the Mexican government. The governor granted many square leagues of land to others with political influence. These huge ranchos or cattle ranches emerged as the dominant institutions of Mexican California. The ranchos developed under ownership by Californios (Hispanics native of California) who traded cowhides and tallow with Boston merchants. Beef did not become a commodity until the 1849 California Gold Rush.
From the 1820s, trappers and settlers from the United States and Canada began to arrive in Northern California. These new arrivals used the Siskiyou Trail, California Trail, Oregon Trail and Old Spanish Trail to cross the rugged mountains and harsh deserts in and surrounding California. The early government of the newly independent Mexico was highly unstable, and in a reflection of this, from 1831 onwards, California also experienced a series of armed disputes, both internal and with the central Mexican government. During this tumultuous political period Juan Bautista Alvarado was able to secure the governorship during 1836–1842. The military action which first brought Alvarado to power had momentarily declared California to be an independent state, and had been aided by Anglo-American residents of California, including Isaac Graham. In 1840, one hundred of those residents who did not have passports were arrested, leading to the Graham Affair, which was resolved in part with the intercession of Royal Navy officials.
One of the largest ranchers in California was John Marsh. After failing to obtain justice against squatters on his land from the Mexican courts, he determined that California should become part of the United States. Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, the soil, and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow, which became known as "Marsh's route". His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first wagon trains rolling to California. He invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.
After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh became involved in a military battle between the much-hated Mexican general, Manuel Micheltorena and the California governor he had replaced, Juan Bautista Alvarado. The armies of each met at the Battle of Providencia near Los Angeles. Marsh had been forced against his will to join Micheltorena's army. Ignoring his superiors, during the battle, he signaled the other side for a parley. There were many settlers from the United States fighting on both sides. He convinced these men that they had no reason to be fighting each other. As a result of Marsh's actions, they abandoned the fight, Micheltorena was defeated, and California-born Pio Pico was returned to the governorship. This paved the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.
In 1846, a group of American settlers in and around Sonoma rebelled against Mexican rule during the Bear Flag Revolt. Afterward, rebels raised the Bear Flag (featuring a bear, a star, a red stripe and the words "California Republic") at Sonoma. The Republic's only president was William B. Ide,[65] who played a pivotal role during the Bear Flag Revolt. This revolt by American settlers served as a prelude to the later American military invasion of California and was closely coordinated with nearby American military commanders.
The California Republic was short-lived; the same year marked the outbreak of the Mexican–American War (1846–48).
Commodore John D. Sloat of the United States Navy sailed into Monterey Bay in 1846 and began the U.S. military invasion of California, with Northern California capitulating in less than a month to the United States forces. In Southern California, Californios continued to resist American forces. Notable military engagements of the conquest include the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Dominguez Rancho in Southern California, as well as the Battle of Olómpali and the Battle of Santa Clara in Northern California. After a series of defensive battles in the south, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed by the Californios on January 13, 1847, securing a censure and establishing de facto American control in California.
Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848) that ended the war, the westernmost portion of the annexed Mexican territory of Alta California soon became the American state of California, and the remainder of the old territory was then subdivided into the new American Territories of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The even more lightly populated and arid lower region of old Baja California remained as a part of Mexico. In 1846, the total settler population of the western part of the old Alta California had been estimated to be no more than 8,000, plus about 100,000 Native Americans, down from about 300,000 before Hispanic settlement in 1769.
In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854, more than 300,000 settlers had come. Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.
The seat of government for California under Spanish and later Mexican rule had been located in Monterey from 1777 until 1845. Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, had briefly moved the capital to Los Angeles in 1845. The United States consulate had also been located in Monterey, under consul Thomas O. Larkin.
In 1849, a state Constitutional Convention was first held in Monterey. Among the first tasks of the convention was a decision on a location for the new state capital. The first full legislative sessions were held in San Jose (1850–1851). Subsequent locations included Vallejo (1852–1853), and nearby Benicia (1853–1854); these locations eventually proved to be inadequate as well. The capital has been located in Sacramento since 1854 with only a short break in 1862 when legislative sessions were held in San Francisco due to flooding in Sacramento. Once the state's Constitutional Convention had finalized its state constitution, it applied to the U.S. Congress for admission to statehood. On September 9, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850, California became a free state and September 9 a state holiday.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), California sent gold shipments eastward to Washington in support of the Union. However, due to the existence of a large contingent of pro-South sympathizers within the state, the state was not able to muster any full military regiments to send eastwards to officially serve in the Union war effort. Still, several smaller military units within the Union army were unofficially associated with the state of California, such as the "California 100 Company", due to a majority of their members being from California.
At the time of California's admission into the Union, travel between California and the rest of the continental United States had been a time-consuming and dangerous feat. Nineteen years later, and seven years after it was greenlighted by President Lincoln, the First transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. California was then reachable from the eastern States in a week's time.
Much of the state was extremely well suited to fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit trees were grown (including oranges in Southern California), and the foundation was laid for the state's prodigious agricultural production in the Central Valley and elsewhere.
In the nineteenth century, a large number of migrants from China traveled to the state as part of the Gold Rush or to seek work. Even though the Chinese proved indispensable in building the transcontinental railroad from California to Utah, perceived job competition with the Chinese led to anti-Chinese riots in the state, and eventually the US ended migration from China partially as a response to pressure from California with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
Under earlier Spanish and Mexican rule, California's original native population had precipitously declined, above all, from Eurasian diseases to which the indigenous people of California had not yet developed a natural immunity. Under its new American administration, California's harsh governmental policies towards its own indigenous people did not improve. As in other American states, many of the native inhabitants were soon forcibly removed from their lands by incoming American settlers such as miners, ranchers, and farmers. Although California had entered the American union as a free state, the "loitering or orphaned Indians" were de facto enslaved by their new Anglo-American masters under the 1853 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians. There were also massacres in which hundreds of indigenous people were killed.
Between 1850 and 1860, the California state government paid around 1.5 million dollars (some 250,000 of which was reimbursed by the federal government) to hire militias whose purpose was to protect settlers from the indigenous populations. In later decades, the native population was placed in reservations and rancherias, which were often small and isolated and without enough natural resources or funding from the government to sustain the populations living on them. As a result, the rise of California was a calamity for the native inhabitants. Several scholars and Native American activists, including Benjamin Madley and Ed Castillo, have described the actions of the California government as a genocide.
In the twentieth century, thousands of Japanese people migrated to the US and California specifically to attempt to purchase and own land in the state. However, the state in 1913 passed the Alien Land Act, excluding Asian immigrants from owning land. During World War II, Japanese Americans in California were interned in concentration camps such as at Tule Lake and Manzanar. In 2020, California officially apologized for this internment.
Migration to California accelerated during the early 20th century with the completion of major transcontinental highways like the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, the population grew from fewer than one million to the greatest in the Union. In 1940, the Census Bureau reported California's population as 6.0% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian, and 89.5% non-Hispanic white.
To meet the population's needs, major engineering feats like the California and Los Angeles Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams; and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were built across the state. The state government also adopted the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a highly efficient system of public education.
Meanwhile, attracted to the mild Mediterranean climate, cheap land, and the state's wide variety of geography, filmmakers established the studio system in Hollywood in the 1920s. California manufactured 8.7 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking third (behind New York and Michigan) among the 48 states. California however easily ranked first in production of military ships during the war (transport, cargo, [merchant ships] such as Liberty ships, Victory ships, and warships) at drydock facilities in San Diego, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. After World War II, California's economy greatly expanded due to strong aerospace and defense industries, whose size decreased following the end of the Cold War. Stanford University and its Dean of Engineering Frederick Terman began encouraging faculty and graduates to stay in California instead of leaving the state, and develop a high-tech region in the area now known as Silicon Valley. As a result of these efforts, California is regarded as a world center of the entertainment and music industries, of technology, engineering, and the aerospace industry, and as the United States center of agricultural production. Just before the Dot Com Bust, California had the fifth-largest economy in the world among nations.
In the mid and late twentieth century, a number of race-related incidents occurred in the state. Tensions between police and African Americans, combined with unemployment and poverty in inner cities, led to violent riots, such as the 1965 Watts riots and 1992 Rodney King riots. California was also the hub of the Black Panther Party, a group known for arming African Americans to defend against racial injustice and for organizing free breakfast programs for schoolchildren. Additionally, Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant farm workers rallied in the state around Cesar Chavez for better pay in the 1960s and 1970s.
During the 20th century, two great disasters happened in California. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood remain the deadliest in U.S. history.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze known as "smog" has been substantially abated after the passage of federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
An energy crisis in 2001 led to rolling blackouts, soaring power rates, and the importation of electricity from neighboring states. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Company came under heavy criticism.
Housing prices in urban areas continued to increase; a modest home which in the 1960s cost $25,000 would cost half a million dollars or more in urban areas by 2005. More people commuted longer hours to afford a home in more rural areas while earning larger salaries in the urban areas. Speculators bought houses they never intended to live in, expecting to make a huge profit in a matter of months, then rolling it over by buying more properties. Mortgage companies were compliant, as everyone assumed the prices would keep rising. The bubble burst in 2007–8 as housing prices began to crash and the boom years ended. Hundreds of billions in property values vanished and foreclosures soared as many financial institutions and investors were badly hurt.
In the twenty-first century, droughts and frequent wildfires attributed to climate change have occurred in the state. From 2011 to 2017, a persistent drought was the worst in its recorded history. The 2018 wildfire season was the state's deadliest and most destructive, most notably Camp Fire.
Although air pollution problems have been reduced, health problems associated with pollution have continued. The brown haze that is known as "smog" has been substantially abated thanks to federal and state restrictions on automobile exhaust.
Alongside runners participating in the Race For The Cure, which had the northbound roadway blocked off to cars. September 27, 2015. © 2015 Peter Ehrlich
Yes, it really did look like this.
After a full day of driving up to Bishop, and not knowing how reliable the fall color reports were (if anything, they understated the change), we arrived in time to hit one of the pullouts on the road to Sabrina Lake, overlooking Cardinal 'village' and the Cardinal Mine Grove, and just waited for things to color up.
If you haven't been to this area, Sabrina is directly below the peaks you see in the background.
Utah, USA - May 16, 2021: Tourists enjoy the view from a pullout along the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway in Zion National Park
An F-16D Viper from the 310th Fighter Squadron popping chaff and flares on pullout after a gun run on the strafe targets at Range Complex II at the Barry M. Goldwater Range.
Near the end of the road through Waimea Canyon, one comes to a pullout where the Kalalau Valley can be observed from above. This valley is on the beautiful Na Pali Coast and it is only accessible via boat or a difficult 11 mile hike. I chose to view from above rather than hike... This overlook is frequently foggy and I was lucky to get this view.
I have never been much of a landscape photographer, mostly because the best light for landscape is also the best light for wildlife, and for me wildlife always wins. As I was driving back toward Yellowstone I saw this beautiful scene at one of the pullouts in Grand Teton National Park. I was afraid that the harsh, mid-day sun would render the image an automatic delete. In my bag I had a 100-300mm lens on one camera and I also had an 18-55mm zoom lens on another camera. Since there were several people taking photos from the pullout I decided to go with the 100-300 instead of walking across the field and into everybody's photo albums. (This did not deter others from doing the same) I took out the camera with the 100-300 with a polarizer attached, snapped off a couple of shots and they did not turn out half bad. Brilliant colors can make a hack photographer with the wrong equipment look pretty good sometimes.
Eocene-age conglomerate overlain by gravel and columnar basalt (per Roadside Geology of Yellowstone Country, Fritz & Thomas) viewed from just above the confluence of Tower Creek and the Yellowstone River. The formations can also be viewed from Calcite Spring and a couple of other pullouts along the main road a mile or so to the north.
This image from the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the central portion of the star cluster IC 348. Astronomers combed the cluster in search of tiny, free-floating brown dwarfs: objects too small to be stars but larger than most planets. They found three brown dwarfs that are less than eight times the mass of Jupiter, which are circled in the main image and shown in the detailed pullouts at right. The smallest weighs just three to four times as much as Jupiter, challenging theories for star formation.
The wispy curtains filling the image are interstellar material reflecting the light from the cluster’s stars – what is known as a reflection nebula. The material also includes carbon-containing molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. The bright star closest to the centre of the frame is actually a pair of type B stars in a binary system, the most massive stars in the cluster. Winds from these stars may help sculpt the large loop seen on the right side of the field of view.
[Image description: Image of a star cluster and nebula, with three image details pulled out in square boxes stacked vertically along the right. Main image is showing wispy pink-purple filaments and a scattering of stars. Each of the three boxes along the right corresponds to a small detail, numbered and circled, in the main image. Box 1 (top): A detail from the lower left of the main image shows a pair of small circular pinkish-white spots on a yellowish-brown background. Box 2 (middle): A detail from the middle of the lower part of the main image shows a single small circular pinkish spot on a yellowish-brown background. Box 3: A detail from the lower right edge of the main image shows a small circular pinkish spot on a dark brown background.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and K. Luhman and C. Alves de Oliveira (Penn State University)
Time to get some pics posted from Trish and my vacation in BC this past summer.
From our first day on July 07. There were a couple of Black Bears hanging out at a pullout north of Blue River, BC so we stopped to take a few shots from the car. It was nice to see bears on the first day of our trip.
This was my first view of the Grand Canyon. I can't find any reference to a name for this pullout along Hermit Road, either on Google Maps or the NPS map. But, despite the icy surface and the wind, it was amazing.
These warblers now nest in habitat that was earlier occupied by the Golden-wingeds. Seen at Port Hurson SGA. 136 Pullout.
Phantom Lake, a pullout area with a mountain lake in the Lamar Valley area of Yellowstone national Park
Peering down a faded blacktop strip, narrow hastily marked pullouts define a line of fogged windows, wind-swept porches, and vinyl brick and mortar storefronts giving memory to days of yesterday.
Fresh oil stains follow a flatbed 73 Chev', worn and tired much like the wrinkled man in the seat. a clod of earth falls from the rust covered rocker as he dons a one finger wave and a nod from the brim of his creased DeKalb hat. Left foot heavy on the clutch, a glazed right indicator, and in a cloud of smoke he's gone.
Life passes by a little slower in Small Town USA. Main Street America, in the form of little communities speckled across fly-over states. Each place a testament to the power of togetherness, collaboration, and good company.
Thinking to yourself - Funny how a melody sounds like a memory - A neon red Beer on Tap sign flickers atop a corner bar. The rack of pool cues, aroma of pub fare, and familiar sound of Lynyrd Skynyrd dilute the senses. A select few seek asylum from the pestilence of today with a nicotine drag courtesy of the Marlboro Man himself.
Of Iron Horses and Broken Men. The story hasn't changed, but the page has turned. Main Street America lives on.
I noticed some nice light at this pullout heading home last night.I didnt see the rainbow until I got out of the car so i was happy i stopped!
Only had a few minutes and it was gone.
Before arriving at the Tipsoo Lake parking lot, I stopped at the long pullout alongside the road to capture an image of the overview. I didn't arrive soon enough for a sunrise shot, but the early morning lighting was just as lovely, leaving the lake and surrounding snow in a shadowed blue hue while the mountain and forest below it were bathed in sun and covered by blue sky.
This image is actually a crop of a wider-angle shot captured with my Pentax 645z medium-format camera. It is everything I had hoped it would be.
If you are interested in reading about photography in Mount Rainier National Park, check out my latest article published in the National Parks Traveler: If you are thinking of visiting Mount Rainier National Park for your first or tenth time, check out my article that the National Parks Traveler just published about what you can see and photograph during the summer months. www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2017/08/photography-nationa...
Copyright Rebecca L. Latson, all rights reserved.
© Jerry T Patterson - All Rights Reserved Worldwide In Perpetuity - No Unauthorized Use. Absolutely no permission is granted in any form, fashion or way, digital or otherwise, to use my Flickr images on blogs, personal or professional websites or any other media form without my direct written permission. This includes but is not limited to Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit or other websites where one's images are circulated without the photographer's knowledge or permission.
During the winter of 2009, I spent 7 days photographing the Tetons.
Most of the pullouts and overlooks were plowed but a number of the roads you're used to driving during the months outside of winter were closed.
For example, you could drive north of town and enter the southern end of Teton Park Road north of the airport but it was only plowed to the Taggart Lake parking lot. After that, it's snow shoes or cross country skis.
Antelope Flats Road was plowed only for about a 1/4 mile and then you had to snow shoe, cross country ski or head out on a snow mobile to get to the Moulton Barns.
So after arriving in town, I went to "Skinny Skis" on W. Deloney to rent snow shoes for 7 days and what a life saver they were.
This winter I will be returning to Jackson Hole around the first week in March for more winter shots there and in Yellowstone National Park.
I'll also be returning to Jackson Hole, WY in early July 2012 for leading my 3 day wildflower photo shoot. I haven't set exact dates as it's too early. I say too early because I based the timing upon previous trips there for wildflowers and it all depends on how much snow the Tetons receive over the winter because this directly effects the timing of the wildflowers. If, like last winter, the Tetons receive 400+ inches of snow then the wildflowers will be later and the best time will most likely be the weekend of July 6-8. If they received 350 or less inches of snow then the snow melts ealier and the wildflowers will be out earlier and the end of June and first part of July will most likely be the height. My advice is to watch the JH snow fall total depth right through the first part of April. BTW. Be warned. The mosquitoes are really bad in late June through early July there.
What's the next best thing to taking my 3 day Jackson Hole, WY (JH) wildflower photo shoot ? Going there and taking a copy of my detailed JH photo shooting guide...see my profile for additional info on the shooting guide.
In any case, hope to see you there.
Keep your fingers crossed. Nikon has replaced the D3 with the D4 and will be replacing the D700 very soon and Canon will be replacing its 5D Mark II this year...all before July from what I understand and I hope to take both with me on my JH wildflower photo shoot....can't wait !!!
Chill out to music by Armik ... www.armik.com/home.html
Thanks for stopping by.
On the way to Telluride from the south, a stop at the scenic overlook with parking for trail-users and a sign indicating that you are at Lizard Head Pass, for the fabulous views if nothing else.
Along Colorado route 145, between Cortez and Telluride, Colorado.
On the Natchez Trace Parkway, as it crosses over the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway, there is a small circular drive. There you can get out and walk to the edge of the waterway, just south of the lock and dam at Bay Springs Lake. At this stop there are also a couple of small ponds, that seem to be more marshes than ponds. It is one of my favorite places to stop. This particular morning brought some glorious mist and light. The scenery itself doesn't compare to some majestic mountain or seashore landscape, but the details have their own beauty and charm. It was difficult for me to decide between my favorites, so I've just uploaded all of them.
While at a pullout along Hwy 101 in Orick California with a view looking across a grassy meadow to a herd of Roosevelt Elk relaxing early afternoon. With this image, I decided to pull back on the focal length and include much of this large herd. I then cropped a portion of the foreground to have more of a balanced, white angle view.
Spent the weekend at Monument Valley for their second annual balloon festival. While the balloon festival itself was somewhat so so photography-wise (lots of confusion on where balloons were launching and the launch sites were somewhat spread out), there were some sweet late day shooting opportunites that made the trip worth the while. This shot was taken from one of the scenic drive pullouts. I was really drawn to how the formations reminded me of cathedral spires.
The pullout for Rustic Falls actually gives you a better view looking back on the Golden Gate of Yellowstone.
Thanks for all of your views, fav's, and comments. You can check out the rest of the album HERE
Fly above the rock barrier of the Cockscomb in Utah to reveal the majestic "Yellow Rock" – a magnificent formation of Navajo sandstone with remarkable stain patterns. It's a popular hike from a trail head up the road, but from my pullout I let the drone climb up for me. Video is 90 seconds long (selected from 9 minutes of footage) with music.
While at a roadside pullout along the Icefields Parkway with a view looking to the west to Center Crowfoot Mountain. This is in Banff National Park. My thought on composing this image was to zoom in with the focal length to have the mountainside fill most of the image and a backdrop of blue skies to complete this setting in the Canadian Rockies. While there was a slight haze from the wildfires in Alberta mixed with the bright afternoon sunlight, I was able to bring out much of the details later, using the ClearView Plus tool in DxO PhotoLab 6. PeakVisor app on my iPhone identified the listing of Center Crowfoot Mountain.
This very large, radio-collared "bronze" colored wolf is a member of Yellowstone's wild Wapiti Lake pack. The pack had been availing itself of the generous nutrition in the carcass of a bison that dropped dead near the road, by happenstance also near several large pullouts where people could park safely and set up their scopes and cameras by the side of the road to watch numerous animals - Wapitis, coyotes, foxes, ravens, an eagle - take turns chowing down on the late winter boon.
The Wapitis are one of the largest packs in Yellowstone. Their home territory is Hayden Valley, much farther south along the Yellowstone River than where this photo was taken. They'd been spending a lot of the winter in this area, which is the territory of a couple of other wolf packs. Somehow they avoided the territorial wars that in fact result in more wolf deaths than any other cause.
This day, the alpha wolves and most of the other adults had departed for Hayden Valley, I would guess to re-establish their dens there in anticipation of the arrival of pups in the coming few weeks. Those left behind (who may catch up, or they may use the opportunity to establish a new pack) are mostly last spring's grown pups. In any case they were full of vim and vinegar, playing gleefully with their full bellies in ample evidence.
Photo taken with a long telephoto from a safe 90-100 yards, as required by Park policy. The wolves showed no sign they were at all disturbed by the presence of people. And all the people were all unable to remove the happy grins from their faces at the opportunity to watch such magnificent animals at relatively close range.
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A colorful formation in contrast to the gray cliffs that follow the Hole-in-the-Rock Road, Devil’s Garden is a unique, easily-accessible natural play park. After driving 12 miles down the graded road, there is a signed pullout for this spot designated as an “Outstanding Natural Area.”
As part of the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, this desert destination features hoodoos, natural arches, and various sandstone formations—some are reminiscent, on a smaller scale, to areas such as Goblin Valley.
Devil’s Garden is a maze of sandstone formations formed by, and continuously shaped by, erosion. Nature’s hand has been at work since the Jurassic Period more than 166 million years ago. Presently, Devil’s Garden boasts hoodoos, arches, and other rock protrusions from the sandy, desert landscape.
Source: Visit Utah
Oct 27-30, 2007
The Great Smoky Mountain
A very beautiful place to shoot
Cades Cove is a lush valley surrounded by mountains and one of the most popular destinations in the Great Smokies. Deer are almost always sighted in the fields, and observations of other wildlife, including bear, Wild Turkey, and fox are possible. Please use pullouts when viewing wildlife and never approach or feed animals.
A wide array of historic buildings dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries is scattered through-out the cove. These include a grist mill, a variety of barns, three churches, and a marvelous collection of log homes and outbuildings.
An 11-mile one-way loop road takes you around the cove. Traffic will be heavy during the tourist season in summer and fall and on weekends year-round.
A visitor center (open daily), restrooms, and the Cable Mill historic area are located half-way around the loop road.
Numerous trails originate in the cove, including the five-mile roundtrip trail to Abrams Falls and the short Cades Cove Nature Trail. Longer hikes to Thunderhead Mountain and Rocky Top (made famous by the popular song) also begin in the cove.
Several designated backcountry campsites (camping by permit only) are located along trails.
Only bicycle and foot traffic are allowed on the loop road from sunrise until 10:00 a.m. every Saturday and Wednesday morning from early May until late September
The image above is really ugly!
Please look at it at original size (less than 2 Mb).
L'immagine sopra è proprio brutta!
Per favore, guardatela in dimensione originale (meno di 2 Mb).
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
This is an attempt to convert a digital photo in something looking like a Roy Lichtenstein artwork... my students, at the Funadium photography online tutoring, sometimes make me very strange requests! Maybe because we talk of a lot of other things that seems totally unrelated to photography, too, because to speak just of photography could become boring.
For the few who don't know who Roy Lichtenstein was, here it is the usual Wikipedia page, and some artworks can be found on Google Images.
Everything is made with the standard tools of The Gimp, without to add anything to it.
If you don't have The Gimp, download your own copy: no need to look on Emule for a bootleg copy, like for other famous softwares, because The Gimp is free!
If you want to try with your own photo, here it is what I do, step by step. In square [] parenthesis there is a reference to to menu to select, and you'll find the values used by me. Feel free to change these values to fit your own image.
This seems a long procedure, but it takes just a 5 minutes, when you know what to do.
And don't be afraid to make a mistake: the Gimp Undo is your friend.
1) Duplicate the original image [Image - Duplicate]
2) Close the original image [File - Close]
3) Save the duplicated image [File - Save] with the extension .xcf, the Gimp native format preserving all the informations
4) Duplicate the Backgroud layer [Layer - Duplicate Layer]
5) Rename the new layer and call it Newspaper [in the Layers, Channels, etc. window right click the Background Copy layer and choose the menu Edit Layer Attributes...]
6) Reduce the number of colors of the Newspaper layer (be sure it is the one evidenced in the layers list) [Colors - Posterize...] - the Posterize levels value used by me is 7
7) Blur the borders of the image, to have a smoother color transition [Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blur...] - the values used by me are: Blur Radius 6, method IIR
8) Remove speckles from the image [Filters - Enhance - Despeckle...] - the values used by me are: Adaptive OFF, Recursive ON, Radius 5, Black level 2, White level 254
9) Apply the newspaper-like filter [Filters - Distorts - Newsprint...] - my values: Input SPI 72, Output LPI 12.0, Cell size 6, Separate to CMYK, Black pullout 100%, Spot function for every color PS Square (Euclidean dot), Oversample 15
At this point you have you image looking like a photo printed on a cheap newspaper, but still the black thick borders typical of Lichtenstein are missing. To make them by hand is a boring job, but we have the Gimp making them for us.
BTW, the procedure to make the borders it totally separated by the newspaper effect so, if you want, you can apply just this one to your images.
10) In the Layers, Channels, etc. window, click on the Background layer to make it active
11) Duplicate the Backgroud layer [Layer - Duplicate Layer]
12) Rename the new layer and call it Borders [in the Layers, Channels, etc. window right click the Background Copy layer and choose the menu Edit Layer Attributes...] - if it is not the one at the top of the layer list drag and drop it to the top
13) Blur a bit the image, to make it smoother and remove little details, like my beard hairs [Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blur...] - the values used by me are: Blur Radius 3, method IIR
14) Trace the edges [Filters - Edge-Detect - Edge...] - my values: Algorithm Gradient, Amount 10, Wrap
15) Invert the image [Colors - Invert]
16) Desaturate the image [Colors - Desaturate...] - my shade of gray is based on Luminosity
17) Raise the contrast, to get rid of small lines [Colors - Brightness-Contrast...] - my values: Brightness 0, Contrast 36
18) Grow the darker areas [Filters - Generic - Erode]
19) Blur again [Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blur...] - the values used by me are: Blur Radius 3, method IIR
20) Make the white color transparent, to have just the dark borders [Colors - Color to Alpha...] - choose a full white (#FFFFFF)
Almost done! Now we can take care of small details, like the reflections in the eyes, add captions and cartoon-like audio effects, etc.
Don't forget to save very often!
I explain you just how to recover the eye reflections, since they are not very easy. BTW, this is the only enhancement requiring you a direct intervention on the image: all the rest until now was made using just menus.
21) Disable the visualization of the Borders layer poking the little eye (ouch!) on the left of the layer thumbnail in the Layers, Channels, etc. window
22) Make the Newspaper layer active clicking on it in the same list
23) Reduce the opacity of the Newspaper layer to 20% using the slider at the top of the layer list, to see the Background layer through it
24) Add a layer mask to the Newspaper layer [in the Layers, Channels, etc. window right click the Newspaper layer and choose the menu Add Layer Mask...] - initialize it to White (full opacity)
25) Now, in the Layers, Channels, etc. window, you have, on the right of the Newspaper thumbnail, a small white rectangle: it is the mask, and everything is black on it is a "hole" to see through it. When a layer has a mask, the active part (the layer or the mask) is evidenced by a white border, and the other one has a black border. To change the activity field between the layer and its mask you must click on the thumbnails.
26) Make the Newspaper mask active [click the white rectangle - of course you can't see the white border, but the black one disappears]
27) Zoom the image at least at 400%
28) Choose the Paintbrush from the Tools palette or from the menu Tools - Paint Tools - Paintbrush
29) Check to have a black foreground color (under the Tools palette)
30) For the paintbrush use: mode Normal, opacity 100% and select the Circle Fuzzy (19) as brush - the Scale parameter must be adapted to your image and allows you to have larger or smaller brushes
31) Paint in black ("dig a hole in the mask") the parts you want to see from the original Background layer
32) Make the mask inactive clicking on the Newspaper thumbnail
33) Restore the layer opacity to 100% - at this point you must see the original background through the mask hole
34) Restore the Borders visibility clicking on the first blank button on the left of the layer thumbnail
35) Repeat the procedure from 25) to 33) for the Borders layer
36) Zoom back at 100% to check the result
37) Save a copy of the image as .JPG [File - Save a Copy...], reply Export to the message telling JPG can't handle transparency and set the Quality to 100%
38) Publish on Flickr
39) Be prepared to reply to a lot of nice comments
For more details you can read the official Gimp manual.
At this point there will be something, as usual, telling "Hey, that's no more a photography!"
Did I state the result is a photography, somewhere?
This is just a bunch of numbers corresponding to colored pixels, like every other digital image, even those "coming directly from the camera, wow!".
The difference between a film photography and a digital one is, IMHO, the same between a sailboat and a motoryacht.
Both stay in the water, require a coat of antifouling paint and crash on rocks... but don't try to ask a sail owner which one is better, if you don't want to be heavily insulted.
ANYWAY THIS IS NOT A CRAPPY VIDEO!!!!
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Questo è un tentativo di convertire una foto digitale in qualcosa che somigli a un'opera di Roy Lichtenstein... i miei studenti, ai tutoring online di fotografia Funadium, qualche volta mi fanno delle richieste molto strane! Forse perché parliamo anche di un mucchio di altre cose che possono apparire totalmente scollegate dalla fotografia, perché parlare sempre di fotografia può diventare noioso.
Per i pochi che non sanno chi fosse Roy Lichtenstein, ecco la solita pagina di Wikipedia, ed alcune opere si trovano con Google Images.
Tutto quanto è stato fatto usando le potenzialità native di Gimp, senza aggiungere alcunché.
Se non avete il Gimp, scaricatevene una copia: nessun bisogno di cercarne una pirata con Emule, come per altri software più famosi, perché Gimp è gratis!
Se volete provare con la vostra foto, ecco cosa ho fatto, passo per passo. Tra parentesi quadrate [] ci sono i riferimenti ai menu da selezionare, e troverete i valori usati da me. Cambiateli pure per adattarli alla vostra immagine.
Sembra una procedura lunga, ma è un lavoro di 5 minuti, quando si sa cosa fare.
E non abbiate timore di sbagliare: la funzione Annulla è vostra amica!
1) Duplicate l'immagine originale [Immagine - Duplica]
2) Chiudete l'immagine originale [File - Chiudi]
3) Salvate l'immagine duplicata [File - Salva] con estensione .xcf, il formato nativo di Gimp che preserva tutte le informazioni
4) Duplicate il livello Sfondo [Livelli - Duplica livello]
5) Rinominate il nuovo livello e chiamatelo Giornale [nella finestra Livelli, Canali, ecc. fate un click destro sul livello Sfondo copia e scegliete il menu Modifica attributi di livello...]
6) Riducete il numero di colori del livello Giornale (accertatevi che sia quello evidenziato nella lista dei livelli) [Colori - Posterizza...] - il numero di Livelli di posterizzazione usato da me è 7
7) Sfocate l'immagine, per avere una transizione più morbida tra i colori [Filtri - Sfocature - Gaussiana...] - i valori usati da me sono: Raggio di sfocatura 6, metodo IIR
8) Smacchiate l'immagine [Filtri - Miglioramento - Smacchiatura...] - i valori usati da me sono: Adattivo NO, Ricorsivo SI, Raggio 5, Livello del nero 2, Livello del bianco 254
9) Applicate il filtro effetto giornale [Filtri - Distorsioni - Effetto giornale...] - i miei valori: CPP in ingresso 72, LPP in uscita 12.0, Dimensione cella 6, Separa in CMYK, Estrazione del nero 100%, Funzione spot per ogni colore Quadrato PS (punto euclideo), Sovracampionamento 15
A questo punto avete la vostra immagine che sembra una foto stampata su un giornale di bassa qualità, ma mancano ancora i bordi spessi tipici di Lichtenstein. Farli a mano sarebbe un lavoro noioso, ma abbiamo il Gimp che li può fare per noi.
A proposito, la procedura per fare i bordi è totalmente separata dall'effetto giornale quindi, se volete, potete applicare solo questa alle vostre immagini.
10) Nella finestra Livelli, Canali, ecc., cliccate sul livello Sfondo per renderlo attivo
11) Duplicate il livello Sfondo [Livelli - Duplica livello]
12) Rinominate il nuovo livello e chiamatelo Bordi [nella finestra Livelli, Canali, ecc. fate un click destro sul livello Sfondo copia e scegliete il menu Modifica attributi di livello...] - se non è il primo della lista livelli trascinatelo in cima alla lista
13) Sfumate un po' l'immagine, per farla più soffice e rimovere piccoli dettagli, come i peli della mia barba [Filtri - Sfocature - Gaussiana...] - i valori usati da me sono: Raggio di sfocatura 3, metodo IIR
14) Tracciate i bordi [Filtri - Rilevamento margini - Spigoli...] - i miei valori: algoritmo Gradiente, Quantità 10, Avvolgi
15) Invertite l'immagine [Colori - Inverti]
16) Desaturate l'immagine [Colori - Desaturazione...] - le mie sfumature di grigio sono basate su Luminosità
17) Alzate il contrasto, per eliminare le linee più sottili [Colori - Luminosità-Contrasto...] - i miei valori: Luminosità 0, Contrasto 36
18) Allargate le aree scure dell'immagine [Filtri - Generici - Erodi]
19) Sfocate di nuovo [Filtri - Sfocature - Gaussiana...] - i valori usati da me sono: Raggio di sfocatura 3, metodo IIR
20) Rendete il colore bianco trasparente, per avere solo i bordi scuri [Colori - Colore ad Alfa...] - scegliete un bianco pieno (#FFFFFF)
Quasi finito! Ora possiamo prenderci cura dei piccoli dettagli, come i riflessi negli occhi, aggiungere fumetti ed effetti audio da cartoon, ecc.
Non dimenticate di salvare molto spesso!
Vi spiego solo come recuperare i riflessi negli occhi, visto che non è molto semplice. Tra parentesi, questo è l'unico miglioramento che richiede un intervento diretto sull'immagine: tutto il resto finora è stato fatto usando solo i menu.
21) Disabilitate la visualizzazione del livello Bordi cliccando l'occhio (ahi!) a sinistra dell'iconcina del livello nella finestra Livelli, Canali, ecc.
22) Rendete attivo il livello Giornale cliccandolo nella stessa listar
23) Riducete l'opacità del livello Giornale a 20% usando il cursore sopra la lista dei livelli, per vedere il livello Sfondo attraverso di esso.
24) Aggiungete una maschera di livello al livello Giornale [nella finestra Livelli, Canali, ecc. fate click destro sul livello Giornale e selezionate il menu Aggiungi maschera di livello...] - inizializzatela a Bianco (opacità completa)
25) ora, nella finestra Livelli, Canali, ecc., avrete, a destra dell'iconcina del Giornale, un rettangolino bianco: è la maschera, e tutto quanto è nero è un "buco" per vederci attraverso. Quando un livello ha una maschera, la parte attiva (il livello o la maschera) è evidenziata da un bordino bianco, mentre l'altra parte lo ha nero. Per cambiare il campo di attività tra un livello e la sua maschera bisogna cliccare sulle iconcine.
26) Rendete attiva la maschera del livello Giornale [cliccate il rettangolino bianco - naturalmente non potete vedere il bordo bianco, ma quello nero sparisce]
27) Zoomate l'immagine almeno al 400%
28) Scegliete lo strumento Pennello dalla finestra degli strumenti o dal menu Strumenti - Disegno - Pennello
29) Verificate di avere il nero come colore di primo piano
30) Per il pennello usate: modalità Normale, Opacità 100% e selezionate come Pennello il Circle Fuzzy (19) - il parametro Scala deve essere adattato alla vostra immagine e vi permette di avere pennelli più grandi o più piccoli
31) Dipingete di nero ("fate un buco nella maschera") le parti che volete vedere dal livello originale Sfondo
32) Rendete inattiva la maschera cliccando sull'iconcina del livello Giornale
33) Ripristinate l'opacità del livello a 100% - a questo punto dovreste vedere lo sfondo originale attraverso i buchi della maschera
34) Ripristinate la visibilità del livello Bordi cliccando sul primo bottone bianco a sinistra dell'iconcina del livello
35) Ripetete la procedura da 25) a 33) per il livello Bordi
36) Zoomate indietro a 100% per verificare il risultato
37) Salvate una copia dell'immagine in formato .JPG [File - Salva una copia...], rispondendo Esporta al messaggio che vi avvisa che il JPG non può gestire la trasparenza ed impostando la Qualità a 100%
38) Pubblicate la foto su Flickr
39) State pronti a rispondere ad un mucchio di gentili commenti
Per più dettagli potente consultare il manuale ufficiale Gimp (in italiano).
A questo punto ci sarà qualcuno che dice, come al solito, "Ehi, ma quella non è più una fotografia!"
Ho affermato da qualche parte che il risultato è una fotografia?
Questo è solo un mucchio di numeri corrispondenti a pallini colorati, come qualsiasi altra immagine digitale, comprese quelle "come è uscita dalla macchina, wow!"
La differenza tra una fotografia su pellicola e una digitale è, secondo me, la stessa che c'è tra una barca a vela ed una a motore.
Entrambe stanno nell'acqua, hanno bisogno di una mano di antivegetativo e si schiantano sugli scogli... ma non provate a chiedere ad un velista cosa è meglio, se non volete essere insultati pesantemente.
IN OGNI CASO QUESTO NON È UN VIDEO!!!!!!
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1834 is an F-Line pullout car; Bredas were introduced to the J-Church in late 1996. March 25, 1997. © 2016 Peter Ehrlich
Press "L" for full impact
The tiny dot in the clouds - at the top of the tree just above the rise in the middle background - is the bald eagle whose "close-ups" are elsewhere in this album.
Looking more or less south from a pullout along route 89 some miles north of the park
Conveniently (miraculously) a small group of bison cows had parked themselves in dense deadfall within a few dozen yards of a pullout on Yellowstone northwest side. One of them was accompanied by a brand-new calf; in the photo of the mother and calf standing together you can just make out a few inches of dried umbilical cord still attached to baby. The mother was horribly thin, as most bison are at the end of a Yellowstone winter, but not eating, which is unusual. Eventually she did lie down to rest next to her tiny new baby.
Bison calves start out orangey-colored but will turn to brown by fall.
Hwy 29 rises sharply once you get beyond its intersection with the Silverado Trail north of Calistoga at the north end of the Napa Valley. With the many pullouts, there are a lot of scenic spots.
At this time of year, you can see the vines everywhere, though it will be several months before the grapes start to show. Vineyards fill every available space with neat rows, as you can see here.
We stopped at the north pull out for viewing the Tepees formation.
www.nps.gov/places/the-tepees-north-pullout.htm?utm_sourc...
The Tepees is a area of the park named for the conical hills with banded mudstones that were thought to resemble tepees—or tipis as some people spell it. Tipis are not part of the culture in this region, but some Navajos have pointed out one of the hills that resembles a male hogan.
In these badlands you are viewing the erosional pattern of the Blue Mesa Member of the Chinle Formation. Sediments of the Blue Mesa Member were deposited by a vast tropical river system that flowed through this area during the late Triassic Period similar to the Amazon River Basin today. So how do we know what this area was like 225 million years ago? Several characteristics about a rock - like color, rock type, stacking patterns, and fossils they contain - give clues to geologists and tell a very specific story about past environments and how those environments shifted and changed through time.
DSC00050 acd tepees