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Where to see Yosemite Geoscience (GeoShort) · PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: See, Chris, sometimes you go three, two, one and sometimes you go one, two, three.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I saw the confusion in your face, and you're like, when am I gonna clap?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're always you're always keeping me on my toes here.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying it.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's hard, you know.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like I that's pretty simple.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: 3-2-1 or 1-2-3, you know, but you still got confused.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I'm confused easily, that's for sure.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Mo most of my life I spend confused.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is your Geo Short.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about hiking recommendations to see geoscience features that we talked about last week in Yosemite National Park.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: All right, cool.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: So Chris, you're gonna lead the way here with you've been there, I've not been there.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: You've been there a lot, actually.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: You spent many nights in Yosemite National Park.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna do that.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: But before we do, this is a short, let's do short intros.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're Chris Bullheis, nationally recognized Earth Science Teacher, great state of Michigan, my former teacher.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's you, Chris Bullheis.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: All right, you're Dr.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jesse Rymick.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: You are a geoscience professor at the Penn State University, and uh one of my best students that I ever had.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say that once and we'll never revisit that again.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, we'll leave that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: We won't talk about that again.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so we covered Yosemite National Park last week.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Go back, listen to that if you want to hear about the features that we're actually talking about.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But we talked about the rocks themselves, how the rocks themselves formed, these granites.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about sort of the uplift that exposed the granite, which we can't really get, we're not gonna get into or really see.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can it's hard to see that, but we can see glacial features, which we covered, exfoliation, and rock fall.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, Chris, let's go through those sort of four, and you give some recommendations about where to go see this stuff.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the first one is the granites themselves.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what have you seen?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Where have you seen like the cool ones?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, I want to put a disclaimer out there that I don't consider myself to be a Yosemite expert.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I know much more about the ins and outs of the Tetons, for instance, or or Glacier than I do about Yosemite.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've spent a lot of time in Yosemite, but I just I don't know, it's so big, you know, that it's there's just a lot out there.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I am not like the this expert on Yosemite.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so the granites everywhere.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's the most striking thing.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I that's what I said in the in last week's episode.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: You'll never forget the first time you go there because you just haven't seen a landscape like this.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We drove there our first time from Michigan.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, in my little 2005 Toyota Matrix.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: We drove there.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, that little thing struggled going up the mountains, I'll tell you that.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: But driving in from the east, going up over the pass, and and like just I couldn't take my eyes off the rock.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was just amazing.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's I don't it's hard to describe, Jesse.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's just but it's everywhere.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: The granite is everywhere, so you yeah, there's yeah.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the granite's everywhere, and it's kind of spectacular everywhere.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's lots of really cool features everywhere.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it looks the same in some places, it looks totally different in others.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's really cool, really kind of dramatic uh textbook features.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: So let's go to the glacial features.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we touched on a couple key ones.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: We touched on U-shaped valleys, we touched on hanging waterfalls, and we hit horns in a rats as well.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: So of those four, Chris, uh U-shaped valleys, what what do you got?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, U-shaped Valley, the best place to like the best vantage point, it's pretty much anywhere.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, they're all over the butt but you yeah, they they are.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: They really literally are.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the best like way to see them is to get as high as you can.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you can do this in your car, you can do it on hikes.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but get as high as you can and get yourself to a valley overlook, and you're gonna see a U-shaped valley.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just uh they're they're all over the place, they intersect all the time.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, let's see.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: We what we did this past summer for most of the time that we were in Yosemite, we did a one-way trek through.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We started at Tualumney, and then we hiked through the heart of Yosemite, and we exited in Yosemite Valley.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we hiked, it was a one-way, we did a one-way.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so we dropped our car, got a shuttle.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we used the shuttle system, which man, that was a nightmare this year because of COVID, and they were only running a fraction of the buses, and and so um that was a that was a whole other story, but yeah, and not one that I would ever want to do again.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: But we got it to work, so we did our one-way.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we come up through the first day, we go to this place called um Cathedral Lakes or or Cathedral Peaks, and these are the horns.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's just they are amazing.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, what trail to what trail were you on when you were doing this?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a trail name or is it just kind of backcountry?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, you can start at Towalumney Meadows and go up to Cathedral Lakes.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and it's it's maybe uh and these are just these these pockets of little glacial lakes, and they're they're amazing.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we of course stripped down and and got jumped in and went for a swim.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we don't need too many details on that, Chris.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing though.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh anyway, um you can do that as an out and back.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can hike it, it's maybe three to four miles in and then three to four miles out.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you just park your cart to Walumney there, and that's a that's a cool thing too, because there's a post office there uh at the tr near the trailhead, and there's a little shop that you can go into and buy a beer and get a burger, and you know, so it's a it's like that's a good day, man.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I'll tell you, to to do that, go up to Cathedral Lakes, come back out, get a beer and a burger.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, that's a solid day.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's a dream, right there.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so we did that, and but we didn't go back out.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: We continued on through the park.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, the that the horns there, the th the cathedral peaks, they're they're just that's so classic.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's just textbook.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: You look at them, you're like, oh man, yeah, that's a horn, or then and that's a horn everywhere you look.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um the mosquitoes are a force to be reckoned with.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So like I've I've never been there to that place where the mosquitoes have not been uh a major force to deal with.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So okay, go ahead.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: What would what are we doing?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh hanging valleys or hanging waterfalls, I guess, is another one.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think like going the driving through Yosemite Valley.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, which is the main drag.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's a road that So Yosemite Valley is the big U-shaped valley that's the main trunk of the glaciated valleys, right?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you can see then Bridlevale Falls, you can see Yosemite Falls, uh, you know, all of that's in the vicinity of El Capitan, this fame famous monolith there, and uh for a climbing Mecca, you know.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those are those are the best or some of the best, like easily accessed vantage points.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's move on to exfoliation.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: These are these big flakes of granite that are kind of popping off as the as the granite kind of relaxes at the surface.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: To me, the most iconic place to see exfoliation joints is uh Half Dome.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to you you have to get a permit to go to Half Dome, you have to get a permit to climb Half Dome.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's uh that's a a venture all in its own.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, trying to get that because it's it's one of the most like I think sought after hikes in the country, maybe.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's and they limit it.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the I don't I can't remember anymore what the numbers are, but I would say this that if you are fortunate enough to get a permit to climb half dome, we did it this summer, um amazing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: We uh because we were in the backcountry, you know, so we got close to I don't know, maybe two and a half miles away from where we would start to climb half dome, and we camped.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: We got up at two in the morning and hiked up to the base of Half Dome and climbed the cables up to the top, and we were able to see the sun come up from the top of Half Dome.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just uh that we had the mountain to ourselves for maybe a half hour, and that was that was incredible.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the like best, coolest things I've ever done.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, to get to do it with the people that mean the most important to you, you know, it's just uh it's it's incredible anyway.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a wait a minute.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say that wasn't there, so wait a minute.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I do want to say though that like you know, half dome, if you do it from the valley floor, it's a long, long day, and we just see so many people that are unprepared.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, the cables, it's a frightening experience for people that because you have a lot of exposure, you can't fall, it's steep, really steep.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we we had harnesses, our climbing harnesses with us, and um some some runners and some beaners, and we we locked into the cables.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I see all these other people that are just horrified, they can barely move, and they're totally unequipped.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I would highly recommend that.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd also recommend uh water is the the main concern because it's such a long day.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I would buy a filter, buy a$30,$40 water filter so you can get water at the halfway points, both on the way up and on the way down, so you don't have to carry it all because that's the big thing that we see.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then also you need gloves.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna climb the cables, you gotta have gloves or your hands get shredded.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh good advice.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, and you can see exfoliation basically everywhere.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're climbing up exfoliation joints, you have to step up over exfoliation joints going up half dome.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the main way that the granite is relaxing as you're you're as you're seeing these big sort of plates of granite come off and slough off the mountain.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, Rock Falls, Chris, I think, you know, uh last week you said that you've never seen one, but one happens every five days.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was the statistic that you said.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: But it's such a big park that you know, I've never seen one.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that there has been one while I've while I have been there.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I haven't I haven't ever witnessed one.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, these Yosemite Valley, there are rock falls all the time up and down Yosemite Valley.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that's the main trunk.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's where all the sort of big valleys are and where there's a lot of relief for the rocks to fall down into.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, well, Chris, I'm uh I'm super excited to go see this with you someday.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that would be great.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um such a spectacular place.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a real jewel, I would say.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the geoscience we talked about is again, it's everywhere.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It smacks you in the face.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's basically it's a textbook location for many different geoscience features, and there's a reason why it's a national park, and that's because it's so stunning.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it is.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the coolest places.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's very busy.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's a busy place.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's uh let's go do some research.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get some research permits so we can go in the backcountry easily and we can kind of, you know, we can go see the cool stuff, right?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right, man.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a wrap.
• 11:28
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• 11:29
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• 11:31
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• 11:34
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• 11:40
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• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: All right, please.