Merced River Photography Plan

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 41 - 60 of total 96 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

661climber

climber

Central valley

Dec 22, 2015 - 02:26pm PT

Beautiful!

hooblie

climber

from out where the anecdotes roam

Dec 23, 2015 - 08:31am PT

another plug for mariposa photog/blogger micheal frye
http://www.michaelfrye.com/landscape-photography-blog/

A small storm arrived yesterday morning. It looked like it might clear before sunset, but by early afternoon it became obvious that showers would linger throughout the day. There was, however, another window of opportunity, as the two-thirds-full moon was due to set at 1:45 a.m. When the clouds started to break up around 9:00 p.m. I drove up to Yosemite Valley.

This storm was a little warmer than the previous ones, bringing mostly rain instead snow to Yosemite Valley, but in typical fashion the temperature dropped at the tail end of the storm, and I found a light dusting of snow. I arrived just before ten o’clock, almost four hours before the moon was due to set, so this was the lunar equivalent of an early-afternoon clearing, with the moon still high overhead. But there was abundant mist, and moonlight breaking through clouds, so it was quite beautiful. And the mist lingered for hours, so I stayed and kept photographing until after the moon set.

I haven’t had time to process all the images yet, but this image from Gates of the Valley is one of my favorites. It was captured around 12:40 a.m., as the moon was getting lower, and the light more interesting. I had already made a few images from this spot when I noticed the clouds breaking up a little, revealing stars. I could also faintly see a band of moonlight raking across the bottom of Cathedral Rocks and Bridalveil Fall.

The only way to capture all this with my best nighttime lens, a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4, was to stitch together a panorama. So I turned the camera vertically and captured four frames, each at 15 seconds, f/2.8, and 6400 ISO. There wasn’t time to level the tripod properly for capturing a panorama, so I just eyeballed it, using my camera’s virtual horizon to keep things straight, and leaving plenty of overlap between frames. Lightroom’s Panorama Merge had no trouble blending the images together.

It was another magical, moonlit night in Yosemite. I got home at 3:00 a.m., but it was totally worth every minute of lost sleep. I’ll post more images soon.

— Michael Frye

McHale's Navy

Trad climber

From Panorama City, CA

Dec 23, 2015 - 11:45am PT

I like the Merced love. Secret pools and hidden landscapes, and wildlife trying to have a world of its own. Wildlife here would include Mouse!

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 23, 2015 - 12:53pm PT

Thanks, Commander McHale!
--SA Mouse
Tooken in early Frebruary last year.Merry Merced River Christmas!

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 24, 2015 - 02:14pm PT

That's a bit of work, DMT. Thaks, and the pictures say a lot. And you're doing it precisely and with finely-tuned abandon, letting the waters carry you upstream like an old-time trapper/explorer. One more reason that you, with your fine mind an ability to get down to basics, are My Ideel.

The tribute the Merced River pays to the San Joaquin is used in ag to water the lands south of the river, some of it returning to the network upstream where Bear Creek and Owens Creek, among others south of Merced, and delivers excess irrigation water, Merced River water, into the San Joaquin, but it's not much. This probably just disappears in the dry beds of these creeks.

Here;s the Plan the County has in place.
http://www.co.merced.ca.us/pdfs/planning/generalplan/DraftGP/DEIR/6_ag_mcgpu_eir_2012_11_23fa.pdf

Were it not for the Merced Irrigation District's dams, Exchequer and McClure, and the canals which they feed, beginning at Merced Falls, this land might have not developed into such a phenomenal bread-basket.

I like to think of the flood control which these dams provide, as well. There were SERIOUS floods on the Merced prior to Exchequer's construction in the 1920s afterwards. Folks were un-ready and helpless to do anything except open flood gates, warn others along the river to get the heck out, and house the displaced wherever they could.

//Floods of 1950/USGS record//
http://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/1137f/report.pdf

Irrigation with water from the Merced River continued to grow substantially until most of the arable land around the river, some 120,000 acres (490 km2), was under cultivation. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley was to such an extent that many of the rivers ran dry in sections. Upriver of the Merced River confluence with the San Joaquin, the latter river was usually dry, only regaining flow where the Merced River enters. In the mid-20th century, the flow in the Merced River diminished to such a degree that very few salmon returned to spawn in the lower section of the Merced River. In 1991, a fish hatchery, the Merced River Hatchery, was built beside the Merced River just downstream of the Crocker-Huffman Diversion Dam, the lowermost Merced River dam. Fall chinook salmon travel up a fish ladder into the hatchery's pools, which are supplied with water diverted from the Merced River.
--Wikipedia

The sixties saw the level of Exchequer Dam raised, and Snelling no longer has a significant flood problem, but here in town I've seen some flooding since I've lived here, but not anything drastic.

There is an Army Corps of Engineers dam on most of the creeks south of Planada and north of Hwy 140 in place since the fifties and sixties that prevent flooding .

These links I'm posting take a while to read, but there's lot of beta in them.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 25, 2015 - 02:16pm PT

For the record, the unidentified bridge is the one on the Snelling Road, or G Grade closer to town, an extension of G St. in Merced. I think it's officially called by the State Highway System J-19. It crosses from the flat plains north of Merced into dredging talus mixed in with some cattle farms and suddenly dead-ends at the road going east into Snelling.

Here is a motorcyclist heading south in the evening.
Here is some of the bottom land located in what is commonly called by locals "The Big Bottom."Before it was dredged, the place looked similar to this.

And this is what the country looks like going south from the bridge, just at the top of the rise. This is what the Big Bottom folks called The Plains.

hooblie

climber

from out where the anecdotes roam

Dec 25, 2015 - 02:51pm PT

you had me at slough! no really, 'strue. this level of share pleases the parto'me that wants to know it all

this is not the one, but same make and model: our family boat saw many a mile of the delta
back in the early sixties. what a separate world between the levies, where blackbirds
and muskrats ruled the willows and canvas snaps secured the preteen from
his own imagination and otherwise unmanageable quantities of dew

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Jan 30, 2016 - 05:52am PT

When the family settled into living in Merced in 1961 I was twelve and my older brother was 14. He had been under Grampa Bill Bermingham's influence for most of his life and by then was a dyed-in-the-wool outdoorsman, spending many days out in the area of Snelling and Merced Falls shooting things and catching fish. That's what outdoorsmen do, right?

He later went to work for the Irrigation District and eventually purchased about twenty acres on the north side of the river, setting up a series of bass ponds in the piles of dredged rock, leveling acres of piles of cobbles, and building a beautiful house there with a large lawn extending down to the riverbank.

He is now retired and living well, but spends only enough time there (or so it seems to me) to maintain it and has a friend living there in a single-wide who takes up the slack when he isn't there. He likes to travel to hunt and fish, and his wife is kinda happy this way...she's a sweetie and I love her for loving my hard-to-love older Downstream Brother.

Myself, I prefer the higher section of river between Briceburg on Hwy. 140 and Lake McClure, and the section of the river in Yosemite Valley, especially.

Here are some shots of the Briceburg Canyon. The railroad grade on the north side of the river is maintained and a relaxing cruise. It is gated several miles downstream from Briceburg at a campground, and the rest of the run can be done by hikers to Bagby. The BLM controls things here, and the watershed lands below Bagby and just above it are run by the MID.

Feel free to make up your own captions. These were taken in Nov. of 2013, so the water level was low, low, low and remained that way the next spring.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Jan 30, 2016 - 07:25am PT

Good morning, DMT.

Here is some of that wildlife safely protected in Briceburg Canyon, where there is no hunting allowed.

Geese and a variety of ducks and some deer.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 8, 2016 - 01:49pm PT

Swirls in the eddy.

tuolumne_tradster

Trad climber

Leading Edge of North American Plate

Feb 8, 2016 - 03:36pm PT

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Apr 9, 2016 - 05:30am PT

The Cascades flats on the Merced River from Reed's Pinnacle area on Hwy. 120.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2016 - 05:25pm PT

Merced River looking upstream from Snelling Road bridge.

Looking upstream on the Merced River from an access point at Fourth St. in Snelling.
Maurice Simon is the man in the picture.

Top of McSwain Dam, earth-filled and rock-faced.

Back side of the dam.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2016 - 04:57am PT

Bro Tim knows big trout.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2016 - 10:00am PT

Hey hey! There there...say...say...

Listen to the fog
Echoes on a winter day
In the afternoon

They die out quickly
Muffled by the overcast
And float downriver

I was just this morning wondering what the river looked like from the rain this week.

Merci beaucoupo, brolly boy.

mouse from merced

Trad climber

The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 11, 2016 - 10:04am PT

I personally approve this plan.

I have never been further downstream than the locked gate below Briceburg several miles on the MR Trail.

The very top of El Capitan is visible in Timid's fine picture.