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Ahwahnee Hotel entrance with Liz

Fractured Rock at Olmstead Point

Tree at Olmstead Point

Hi Folks
On June 6 we did some hiking and visited the historic Ahwahnee hotel. On June 7 we drove the Tioga road across the middle of the park through Tioga pas. There we saw a tree growing out the sold rock and another out of fractured rock, both taken from Olmstead Point. We drove to Devils Post-pile National Monument. My Senior Pass wasn't valid at Devils Post-pile, but we arrived on a free day.
      On Sunday, 6-8, we drove to Railtown 1897, a California State Historic Park(see scan). The brochure mentioned that this train was a favorite of Hollywood film-makers, found in "The Unforgiven", "High Noon", "Petticoat Junction" and a "Little House on the Prairie" episode, among 50 different movies and tv shows.
      After riding the train, we drove to Hetch Hetchy Valley part of Yosemite NP. This valley was the site of an epic confrontation between the city of San Francisco and the beginning environmental US movement.
      There is a dam called the O'Shaughnessy Dam, on the Tuolumne River, in this valley. Back in 1906, the San Francisco earthquake was followed by an even more destructive fire, which raged out of control due to an inadequate water supply. Gifford Pinchot, who convinced President Roosevelt to start the US Forest Service, urged the President to approve San Francisco's request for a dam inside Yosemite National Park. TR's Secretary of the Interior subsequently approved the city's application, but a law had to be passed by Congress approving a land swap between the city and the US govt. John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club led the opposition.
      However, the city prevailed, and the bill was signed by President Wilson in 1913. I have attached pictures of the dam, a diagram showing it and another dam just outside the park which flooded another part of the park. No dam has been built inside a US National Park since then.
      We saw cars with bumper stickers:"Restore Hetch Hetchy." Two dams in the US have been taken down in the last 10 years, one on the Elwha river in Washington state and the other on the Neversink river in NY state. The Neversink river is crossed by Halls Mills covered bridge, NY-53-01. We visited this bridge in 2002 before either of us had digital cameras and I never scanned it until today. As you can see, it is part of a covered bridge scrapbook made by Liz.
      She has three loose leaf binders of cbs that we have visited, mostly in the US, but some in Europe, as you know if you have read previous travelogues by me. She has compiled these three scrapbooks because she doesn't want her covered bridge photo collection discarded when she passes on. She figures that our children/grandchildren will want to keep them more than they would simple photo albums.
Tom

Devils Post Pile National Monument with Tom	Catskill CBs from Liz's Album

Hetch Ketchy	Railtown 1897

Oshaughnessy Dam

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