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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 31, 2015 - 06:07pm PT
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for nita, a big firefall fan.
Complete with strings in the background.
[Click to View YouTube Video]That is the same clip, repeated several times, from the 1954 release, Caine Mutiny, starring Bogart.
This is much nicer, from Getty Images.
http://datab.us/EhsGw3tYMog#Yosemite Fire Fall 1960s - Old footage
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Both photos from Shirley Sargent's book, Yosemite & Its Innkeepers, 1975, Flying Spur Press.
More to come!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 10, 2015 - 05:34pm PT
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"Why, that's a Wild Gazooba, miss. Have you never seen one? And for that matter, have you ever seen a peach-a-tilla bird?"
The Birdman of Yosemite
as told by Shirley Sargent
(Inkeepers of Yosemite)
“Kenneyville” was the quondam name of the area around the base of the Royal Arches. It was the site of the YPCC stables (moved further east). It was “dismantled” to make way for the Ahwahnee Hotel.
When Kenneyville was torn down in 1926...Herbert Sonn, the “Birdman of Yosemite, was homeless.
Born in 1879 and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Sonn was a member of a distinguished scientific and artistic family but he was adventurous and traveled west in 1914. In Yosemite Valley he found a home and career in taming birds.
Before long, he had a work shop in Kenneyville where he fashioned novel bird caricatures from pine cones, acorns, nuts, bark, and moss. He called them “Wild Gazoobas” and gave them titles such as “Jimmy Seekoya,” “Peach-a-tilla,” and “Yosemite Zip.” He kept two such exotic creatures in a wire cage labelled, “Somthing the scientists overlooked—WHISTLING KAZILLA (Pinekona Californikus),”
Not only did he sell his pinecone birds but copyrighted them, had postcards made, and sold the cards to tourists. When Kenneyville was dismantled, Sonn appealed to Mrs. Curry for a site at Camp Curry, and she allowed him a place on the western edge of camp.
There amid boulders, pines, and oaks, the slight, gentle Birdman had a tent for an office and another one for a home, tables, several bird-feeding stations, and a cleared space where people gathered to watch his twice-daily bird shows.
A manzanita and rock fence enclosed his camp, and a trail bisected it. [One old-timer] says his first Yosemte job was working for the Birdman in 1936. He was twelve and paid an occasional quarter for, as he wrote, "packing souvenir birds for shipment, arranging the chairs before his lectures, and sometimes raking the yard...”
At other times it was his duty to retrieve the ball bearings Sonn had aimed at ground squirrels with a sling shot.
Park naturalists felt that Sonn’s lectures gave people an appreciation and interest in birds and conservation, and this was concurred by Horace Albright (Bigwiggus enpeeesso). Onlookers watched varied birds land to eat, while Sonn described their traits and role in bird life.
About 1932 the Birdman married a Camp Curry maid.
Until retirement in 1937, he continued to give shows, and sell bird creations and postcards at Camp Curry. In July, 1934, no less a personage than Eleanor Roosevelt thrilled him with a visit and an order for pinecone birds to give her grandchildren.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 12, 2015 - 05:34am PT
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Very recent vintage, from the seventies, I believe.Lucy's family is still pursuing this as a mainstay of their lives, and they had a basketry gig just two days ago.
http://us3.campaign-archive2.com/?u=b3fdad07568d5879b9bac372f&id=d68ce82fd7&e=b8bb33a29a
And quite a bit older...
"Where Arrow?"
"There Arrow."
"It is 3,000 feet to the Bottom
And no undertaker to meet you
TAKE NO CHANCES
There is a difference
Between bracery and just plain
ORDINARY FOOLISHNESS."
In other words,
"Everything here is dangerous. Come here at your own risk, touron."
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 12, 2015 - 06:18am PT
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Ha ha. You wrote bracery instead of bravery.
I was thinking to myself "is that some archaic colloquial or just a typo?".
Well, bravery is a rather bracing tonic for the spirit!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jun 12, 2015 - 06:25am PT
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The Valley was already screwed in 1931, the crowds just hadn't arrived. An area as sublime as Yosemite Valley should have been preserved in its natural state not made into a photo op amusement park.
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 12, 2015 - 06:29am PT
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Yes Jim, but we all know about your penchant for softserve ice cream!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jun 12, 2015 - 06:32am PT
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Ah....my Achilles Heel!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 12, 2015 - 08:27am PT
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You've been "braced," O 'nini!
It was a legitimate typo, Roi. But it's nice to keep 'em guessin' and nice to see who's lookin' in at this decrepit photography.
I am reading this book by Sergeant Shirley concurrently with Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness.
It is fun to see the underpinnings of climbers' hatred for the YP&CC and know it's not for the Currys themselves, who genuinely loved the Park, but for the spirit of greed which infected Saint Steven Mather as head of the NPS.
It is role reversal of the strangest kind.
Maybe someday there will come to be a more perfect union of protection and use in the NPS, but it won't be soon.
Remember, the NPS makes the rules. So no matter what the pressure from concessionaires and their stockholders to allow them to fudge, the NPS is still the answerable entity, that is, they are supposed to have some balls when standing up for and advocating for the land and the people who own the land.
Who happen to be stupid Americans, but I'll let Werner-speak alone, for he's apparently happy enough and anyway, he will be out of the loop shortly as an iconoclast working from within.
There was a much worse flood in 1937, I've found. But none top the deerstruction of the '97 whammy, the so-called "hundred-year flood."
When I came to stay in C4, lousy hang that it was, the old Degnan house still stood near the chapel, housing the Donohues. I'm not certain it lasted long and really don't remember if it's still there, but I strongly doubt it.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 12, 2015 - 09:01am PT
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Know thy enemy."We know who makes the rules, where the money's supposed to go. We are the directors."
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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"Brace" yerselves!
THE FIRST OF MANY:
Ranger Yount.By "not my book" I mean that I did not write it. Mice cannot write. This is only common sense.
I purchased it today. It's got some great stories.
This thread could use some verbiage. The roi and the o'nini were walking to the base of the El Cap Tree when the two were suddenly pelted with peanuts...it's the same old tired tale, so there's no point in repeating it again here.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jul 24, 2015 - 02:29pm PT
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1969 was a transformational year in the park as the Wawona tree fell, the Glacier Point Hotel burned down and, I believe it was the fire fall's last year... and by the following year, well, "the times they were a changin'.
Great film of Adams getting the shot heard round the world (or at least Northern California). Thank whatever for the red filter and the dark room. What a remarkable work.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2015 - 02:26pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2015 - 02:57pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2015 - 03:10pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 26, 2015 - 03:13pm PT
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 26, 2015 - 04:31pm PT
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Neat pictures M from M.....keep digging them up!
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