The Merced River is at the bottom of its year. At the Pohono Bridge gauge, where the river leaves Yosemite Valley, the USGS reading at 9 am on Saturday the 19th was 17.8 cubic feet per second, down from 23 on the 9th. The median for this date across 109 years of record is 31; the lowest ever recorded was 8.2, in 1977. Upstream, the Tuolumne at Tuolumne Meadows is running 7. Yosemite Falls is dry; the park lists Vernal, Nevada and Bridalveil as low.

This is the shape of the year, not a fault in it. Nearly every fall in the Valley runs on snowmelt, and the snowpack above 6,000 feet is the reservoir: it releases through spring and early summer and is then spent. When the snow above the rim is gone the creeks drop with it, and the river goes low, warm and slow. Yosemite Falls typically flows from about November through July and comes back with the first autumn storms. The Valley forecast through Friday changes none of it: highs in the mid-80s, lows near 50, and smoke at night from the Dome Fire northeast of Wawona.

The archive says the same. Enid Michael's bird report for August 1929 records Yosemite Fall dry and the Merced "at a low ebb," presenting "the calm and reflective moods that come with age after a well spent life." The wall above the dry fall is still worth standing under.

The Merced in low water. Photo: Robert Schrader / Pexels

On the site this week

Half Dome from Glacier Point. Photo: Joshua Earle / Unsplash

Glacier Point has a standing guide now. From mid-May to September, once the lot at the end of the road fills, rangers stop cars at Badger Pass and put you on a shuttle, and the last one leaves the point at half past five. The piece carries the road's dates for every season since 2000, the park's numbers for every walk off the road, and the winter ski route. https://thetalusfieldjournal.com/articles/glacier-point-how-to-visit

Tenaya Lake. Photo: Michael Hogarth / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The Half Dome cables come down on October 13, and in most years Tioga Road stays open for weeks after they do. That gap belongs to Clouds Rest: a thousand feet higher, no lottery, no cables, and after October 15 a day hike only, because overnight parking on the road ends that day. The Park Service's numbers, the route in order, and the road's closing dates since 2015. https://thetalusfieldjournal.com/articles/clouds-rest-hike

In the park

El Capitan Bridge is under stabilization work through December: 15-minute delays Monday through Friday, 7 am to 7 pm. The footpath over the bridge, which joins the two halves of the Valley Loop Trail, is closed on weekdays until then, so a weekday loop walks as two out-and-backs.

• The Tuolumne Meadows store closes after Sunday the 20th, the last service on Tioga Road; the grill closed on the 14th. The road stays open until the first storm that sticks; fuel and food come from the Valley or Crane Flat.
• YARTS ends by route: the Fresno buses on Highway 41 through September 25, Sonora and Mammoth Lakes through the 30th, Merced year-round.
• The season's last Moonlight Tour is the 22nd, 9 pm from the Valley Lodge, ticketed. The Harvest Moon is full on the 26th at 9:49 am.
• The Yosemite Facelift, the park's biggest volunteer cleanup, runs September 23 to 27 out of the Valley, free with registration.

From the archive

September 1954, Ranger Naturalist William L. Neely at Tuolumne Meadows: "the temptation is to walk among the grass blades and kick frost crystals as one might shuffle through autumn leaves." Yosemite Nature Notes, Vol. 33 No. 9. https://thetalusfieldjournal.com/archive/1954/vol-33-no-9/

Forwarded this? The letter is free at thetalusfieldjournal.com/newsletter. Know someone planning a trip? Forward it.

The falls come back in November. Back next Sunday, when there is something to say.