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Rock, Water & Wood
Granite defines the Valley, from sheer gray faces streaked with dark and light patches, cracks and crevasses, and bumps and irregularities, to large boulders that long ago crashed to the Valley floor. Trees, shrubs and lichens manage to find cracks and ledges on which to grow despite the inhospitable environment.  At night, look along the rock faces in the Valley, and you can sometimes spot a lantern or two hundreds of feet up, showing where a climber or climbers are bivouacked.
Water feeds life in the Valley.  While the dramatic waterfalls naturally draw attention, in the wet season many smaller flows trickle down the granite walls.  In summer, visitors may opt for a leisurely float down the Merced River in inflatable rafts.  The waters of the Merced River are calm in summer and now, in late October, but markers show the levels record floods reached in 1997.  A nighttime rainstorm drums against the tent.  Morning dew drops decorate spider webs.
The Valley is home to an assortment of trees including towering pines and magnificent oaks.  A healthy forest provides habitat for animals and shade and inspiration for visitors.  Miwok Indians ground and ate the black oak acorns as a staple food and used cedar bark to build shelters.  The size of some of the trees and the fact that they have been around for several hundred years gives cause for reflection.  As winter approaches, leaves of deciduous trees turn yellow.  A gust of wind can cause a flurry of falling leaves.  However, the health of the forest cannot be taken for granted.  Sound management practices are important.  For example, in June the Park Service did prescribed burns along Southside Drive in Sentinel Meadow, west of the Yosemite Chapel.  It remains to be seen what impacts climate change could have; in the past year the L.A. Times has run a number of articles detailing how forests in the Southern Sierra Nevada are already struggling, but for now the Valley remains an oasis.
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