We all wondered what might happen to Mono Lake. It would be tragic if it were to die because of climate change. This inland sea has survived prehistoric droughts, but despite success in reducing stream diversions, the buffer taken away by 50 years of diversions has not yet been restored.

Connie’s concerns were broader, stretching from Mono Lake to even the smallest riparian corridors. One of her special interests is “rock glaciers,” where ice lies embedded beneath insulating rock, something we could see at the lower edge of North Glacier, just south of us hugging the mountain crest. The terminal moraine there was seeping water. Rock glaciers, with their insulating coats of rubble, should help wetlands stay lush and alive for many years during a warmer climate regime. “They won’t fill Mono Lake up,” Connie explained, “but they will serve these local wetlands and provide persistent streams where other canyons will just dry up. It’s encouraging, not for the statewide water supply, but locally for birds and wildflowers and pika.”

California’s official climate strategy is to prioritize efforts toward the most sensitive resources. “People are talking about triage these days,” Connie said. “There will be things we just have to let go. An example is on the west slope of the Sierra, where almost all of the resource plans have had a priority to reintroduce salmon. But by mid-century, waters may become too warm to support natural salmon runs, so you may not want to put the effort there if you are just going to lose.”

It was a grim picture to consider as we sat in one of the world’s most heavenly settings. We joined Connie for the first mile of her homeward trail, then headed back up to our tent to prepare for the night.

Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne
Janet: A beautiful bluebird morning at Cascade Lake. We followed a use-trail up onto Shepherd’s Crest and paused at the boundary of Yosemite National Park to gaze westward across the wilderness we would cross in the coming days. Upper McCabe Lake lay on the 38th parallel below us.

Later that day we found fish nets stretched out across Middle McCabe Lake. The national park was two years into a five-year project to clean fish out and improve conditions for native yellow-legged frogs. We saw no fish, but also no polliwogs or adult frogs, yet.

These frogs are beleaguered not only by trout predation, but they are now also infected by a fungus that is killing amphibians all over the world and has spread across much of our mountain wilderness, perhaps carried by flying insects. Some individual frogs will hopefully have resistance, but add in pesticides, which interfere with reproduction, blowing in from Central Valley farms, and the amphibians’ prospects look terribly bleak.

In the following days we descended through the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River. We dropped past California, Le Conte, and Waterwheel Falls, gravity pulling the water, and us, down and down. We left the lodgepole forest behind and walked beneath black oaks and Jeffrey and sugar pines. The canyon featured a series of cascades and pools, with massive granite walls framing the views and channeling our direction of travel through a landscape that resembled upper Yosemite Valley. We saw almost no other people.

Above 6,000 feet, it felt like everything was in a hurry to set seeds before winter, including mountain ash, with its clusters of bright red berries. Where we first encountered oak trees, acorns were plopping under canopies of yellow-brown leaves, but farther down canyon the trees had barely begun to think about autumn.

Janet: A long cascade into an emerald pool got us to stop for another dip. We had it all to ourselves. In another cascade of pools a water ouzel was working away, feeding under water. A great place for both human and avian dippers.