From Project Yosemite comes this lovely time-lapse video of Yosemite Valley. If you’ve never visited this place, and especially if you’re visiting America for a sightseeing trip, this place is a must-see, along with the Grand Canyon and (my favorite) Death Valley.
The Vimeo site notes that “This video is a collaboration between Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty. All timelapses were shot on the Canon 5D Mark II with a variety of Canon L and Zeiss CP.2 Lenses.”
h/t: Matthew Cobb
Fabulous! I have seen the Grand Canyon but not the other two, though I’d love to. I’ll be going to the Canadian Rockies in May and I’m looking forward to that.
This is great. I’ve been to Yosemite a few times and enjoyed it very much.
I’ve also been lucky enought to visit both The Grand Canyon and Death Valley and they were both great. I also think Yellowstone is a must, my favorite of all the parks I’ve visited.
Hi Jerry. My good friend Megan and I visited the Grand canyon and stayed overnight at Phantom Ranch about 8 years ago. When we started down, there was snow at the top, a clear blue sky and bright sunshine. The further we progressed downwards, the more clothes we were taking off, until we were in shorts. This was in December! Good food at Phantom, and the next day a long, trudging ascent skywards towards the rim. Fantastic experience – I’ll never forget it..never….
Our family vacations when I was a youngster (50s/60s) were tent-camping in the Rockies and points west, and I feel very fortunate to have visited all those places.
Dad is a competent amateur photographer and has thousands of 35mm slides from those days. I guess I’m now reminded of the cull/sort/digitize job that I need to get get started on.
And yes, the natural beauty of many parts of this continent just takes the breath away.
Don’t forget:
Zion National Park
The Oregon coast
Redwoods National Park
Canyonlands NP and Arches NP
(really all of northern Arizona and southern Utah, watch out for the Mormons; bring your own wine and beer with you)
Cirque of the Towers in the Jim Bridger Wilderness, Wind River Mountains
Mount Rainier NP
The Olympic Penisula…
(Isn’t getting a little hard to see Yosemite for all the people in the way?)
Some notes for those who haven’t been:
(1) The “shooting stars” in the night photos are aircraft – Yosemite Valley lies just south of the main East-West route to San Francisco, so if you’re traveling that way you can sometimes get a view of the valley (and of Mono Lake, on the Eastern side of the Sierra).
(2) Most people see just the valley, but the high country, though often stark, is spectacular, and accessible about six months of the year (the Tioga Pass road, from Yosemite just North of the valley over the Sierra to Mono Lake, closes at first serious snowfall and doesn’t reopen until the snow is melted – no plowing).
(3) The Pacific Trail from Mexico to Canada passes along the Sierra and through Yosemite. The John Muir Trail is about a 200-mile stretch of that, running from Yosemite Valley up and then South to Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48. If you’re curious, see http://wheresfrances.blogspot.com/2008/09/john-muir-trail-day-1-california-usa_24.html for a description of hiking the trail.
RE:(1) Yes, in that video, the streaks are aircraft. It gets worse down in Kings Canyon /Sequoia as the Navy has fly-over rights and they tend to abuse that privilege. Nonetheless, if you do as I do, and sleep in a bivvy sack with a mosquito net, you can see meteors on any given night. I plan my hikes for late August when mosquitoes are reduced (cold at night, mid 20’s!) and higher number of meteors. Only drawback was the afternoon thunderstorms. (In 2004 I was hit on 5 of the last 6 days, and that was when I was on the highest passes in the Sierra.)
RE:(2) This year Tioga Road only recently closed. It is plowed however, when avalanche danger passes. Usually the NPS tries to open it by Memorial Day (if they can) and by July 4 at the latest. Watch for the skateboarders going down the east side!
RE:(3) The JMT is the world’s most beautiful highway, or so the joke goes. I’ve hiked it end to end a couple of 4 times and did my favorite part (Kings Canyon – Sequoia) a couple more times. The tough part is getting food caches where you need them. Edison Lake (Vermillion Valley Resort) is one of my favorite layover places if only to share stories with the staff and other hikers.
I avoid the valley when I can. I stayed in Camp 4 and the Backpackers camp a few times, but it’s noisy and crowded in the summer. Tuolumne and White Wolf are much better. The Grand Canyon of Yosemite is the Tuolumne River Valley between Glen Aulin and White Wolf, and is a relatively easy 3 day hike.
I would add Bryce Canyon in Utah. I’d also second Derek – the West has so many spectacular places. The downside of the popular spots like Yosemite is the crowds. Having lived in Southern California for a number of years, one can start yearning for a little solitude. I tended to go hiking in out of the way places in the Sierras, the Cascades and the Colorado Plateau.
Death Valley in winter is great — it’s the quietest place I’ve ever been, I’ve stood there on a windless day and been enveloped in absolute quiet for hours – a most unique experience.
I’ve seen the Grand Canyon and Death Valley, and thoroughly agree with your recommendations. Not yet Yosemite though, and I don’t think I will be seeing it for quite a while. Not until the US pulls its KGB guards off its borders and replaces them with people more like the jovial border guard who greeted me and my family back in 1996. I’ve been to the US once recently on a business trip and am in no hurry whatever to repeat the experience.
To me Yosemite is one of the most special places on the planet and to see it should definitely be on people’s ‘bucket list’.
Here’s a cool photo of Yosemite. click on zoomify and play spot the climbers http://www.yosemite-17-gigapixels.com/
A wonderful part of a wonderful country. One day I will have to visit this part of the world. Until then, keep on enticing us travellers to your shores with these amazing images.
An awe-inducing time-lapse experience of one of this Nation’s – this world’s – natural treasures, which I have been fortunate to visit on several occasions.
My only complaint about the film involves the abrupt injection of screechy, initially-unintelligible, then self-important music toward the end (keep the speakers turned low).