Autumn Foliage and Rain, Merced River Near Cathedral Rocks

Posted on 12 November 2008

Autumn foliage lines the riverbanks as rain falls on the Merced River near Cathedral Rocks – Yosemite Valley.

One more – probably the last – in the series of photographs* of this scene made from the bridge near El Capitan Meadow. In this one the rain, which had diminished to mere sprinkles when I began to shoot from this location, began to return in earnest. The surface of the river has lost is reflectivity and is cloudy in this photo. If you look closely (or inspect the print) you can see the raindrops on the surface of the water. This was pretty much the story of this entire weekend of photography. It rained most of the time, occasionally hard. I did quite a bit of my photography between showers and under improvised rain protection.

Although this was photographed near El Capitan Meadow, the rock face beyond the river and the trees is not El Capitan. It is Cathedral Rocks, a large formation that is almost directly across the Valley from El Capitan and a bit east of Bridalveil Fall. If it were located anywhere else where it was not dwarfed by El Capitan, it would be regarded as a very imposing face it its own right.

* The previous two related photographs are here and here

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