Eastern Yosemite: Tuolomne Meadows, Pt. II
This trip, after hiking to the Gaylor Lakes Crest earlier in the morning, we decided to explore the meadow areas themselves and not do anything too strenuous or that too steep of an incline.
One of the hikes that I want to do next time that I am in Yosemite is to hike to the top of Lembert Dome. It has such a commanding view of the whole meadows that I imagine it would be breathtaking, not to mention taking pictures.
If I am crazy or determined enough, I imagine it would be beautiful to get there before dawn, and get pictures of the meadows below as the sunlight stretches across, beginning the day. Or, vice-versa for the sunset.
Either way, one of the things I love about the high mountains is that the more I explore, the more I know I need to see, and the more I have reasons to return.
While at the Parsons Memorial Lodge, one thing I learned this trip was that John Muir was in Tuolomne Meadows with friends, not the Valley Floor, when they came up with the idea of getting Yosemite protected as national land, in order to protect it from overgrazing and destruction by livestock.
I hadn’t realized the Meadows was at the center of where so much of the history of the park, and the Sierra Club, and the conservation movement began. I had always assumed it had been lumped in with the Valley Floor.
Yet, reading about the first members of the Sierra Club, the long-term effects that Nature had on their psyches and souls, and the way they longed to return to the Meadows and the high mountains, I understand why it was in the Tuolomne Meadows that it began and why the Meadows contains so much history.
It is a pull to the wild places that I all-too-often feel myself.
I hope you enjoy the pictures.
P.S.: The triptych-esque nature of the first two top photos was completely accidental, but I like it.
Lembert Dome, Yosemite National Park, CS 
Lembert Dome, Yosemite National Park, CA. 
Lembert Dome, Yosemite National Park, CA. 
Parsons Memorial Lodge, Yosemite National Park, CA.
A Life of Wanderlust and Contemplation 
Beautiful!
Thank you! Yosemite is quite beautiful, indeed. I always treasure my time there.