{"id":8233,"date":"2012-11-02T21:00:50","date_gmt":"2012-11-03T04:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=8233"},"modified":"2012-11-02T21:00:50","modified_gmt":"2012-11-03T04:00:50","slug":"yosemite-rocks-and-sometimes-rolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/yosemite-rocks-and-sometimes-rolls\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo Op: Yosemite Rocks — And Sometimes It Rolls"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
Is the grapefruit-sized rock all that’s keeping the boulder from rolling down the hillside? Photos by BF Newhall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

El Capitan, that massive cliff overlooking the Yosemite Valley, is the biggest single chunk of granite in Yosemite National Park\u00a0 — and in the world, for that matter. But to me, just as spectacular as all that bigness is the abundance of the smaller stuff at Yosemite — the boulders, the rocks, the stones and the pebbles that litter the park’s 12,000 square miles.<\/p>\n

\"Rocks
Underfoot — more rocks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It took 100 million years for the rocks of Yosemite National Park to form — deep underground — and many more eons for that rock to be thrust upward, then shaped and polished by the action of rivers and glaciers.<\/p>\n

If you’d like more of the geologic history behind all this earthy beauty, go to the Yosemite website<\/a>, where you’ll find some gorgeous words to go with all those exquisite rocks. Like granodiorite, tonalit, biotite, gabbro, latite tuff and hornblende\u00a0. Go for it!<\/p>\n

But first, sit a while and listen to these rocks. They are weighty. They have been here a while. They’re trying to tell you something.<\/p>\n

\"Glacial
My hiking friend Jean tells me these distinctive solo rocks are sometimes carried from a great distance by glaciers, in which case they’re called glacial erratics. These two rocks were in Inyo National Forest, just over the pass from Yosemite.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
An invitation to sit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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If you liked this post, you might enjoy “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder — But What If There’s No Beholder?”<\/a><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

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I’m just a so-so photographer with my little Canon point and shoot. A guy named G. Dan Mitchell<\/a> has some real beauties on his website.<\/em> Also, Kathy A has a cool collection of glacier erratic photos on her Pinterest page.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Glacial<\/a><\/p>\n

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The big rocks and cliffs at Yosemite are spectacular, but so is the smaller stuff — the boulders, rocks, stones and pebbles that litter every inch of the 12,000-square-mile national park. I’m especially partial to the glacial erratics. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[816,34,817,31,750,818],"class_list":["post-8233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-beautiful-nature-photography","tag-dont-miss","tag-glacial-erratics","tag-photo-ops","tag-spiritual-journeys","tag-yosemite-rocks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}