How can you top the show that the deer put on for us? By taking a closer look at more reflections in the river of course.Īs we worked our way up the river, we started to get reflections of Half Dome. I wanted to share this with those of you who drink untreated water directly out of the Merced River because you think it is safe. You can see that it took a drink in the exact same spot as the two previous deer had done their business. What are the odds of that?īy now, the third smaller deer had caught up with the second one as it had finished up. I spotted two more deer crossing the river in the same place that the other deer had crossed.Īnd that second deer did the same dang thing in the same exact spot. That deer was peeing in the river! I couldn’t believe that I captured that. I zoomed in a little to try and catch the reflection of the deer in the water surrounded by those reflections.Īnd then this happened. I was composing a picture that shot up the river and had some nice reflections of the rocky bank when through the camera lens, I spotted a deer crossing the river. It was one of those moments when I wish I had the video rolling.but I didn’t. OK, it is time to talk about that situation that I had with the deer and the river. Maple leaves were in various stages of turning their bright yellow while some of the other trees had already lost their leaves and others hadn’t started yet. Reflections of the contrails looked like they were playing tic tac toe in the sky.
Sometimes it is difficult to determine where the reflections begin and where the land begins. We discovered wonderful reflections of El Capitan. We did some road hunting for reflections and color, driving alongside the south side of the Merced River, stopping at pullouts that looked promising and walking down to the river to take a closer look. Mid-October to mid-November is the time of the year for the best fall colors in the Yosemite Valley. Maps: El Capitan and Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Topographic Quad We saw quite a few critters on this trip and I caught some of them in a somewhat compromising situation. Parking at the Ahwahnee Hotel, we hiked up the Mirror Lake Loop to see what those dogwoods and maples were up to. It was also worth taking that little hike to explore along the Merced River where we were rewarded with gorgeous reflections in the river. We were very curious what those fall colors were up to in Yosemite Valley, so we took a little drive to see how they were shaping up.