When Nature gets impressionistic

A painting exhibition in the late 70's in Paris really triggered my intested for the United States. It was the first of its kind organized in a French museum displaying all the famous American painters from the last two centuries. I was particularly impressed with the masterpieces of Church and Bierstadt depicting the great American landscapes, including Yosemite. Five years ago when I first went there, all the passes were still closed by the snow and we had to admire the peaks and domes from the valley and that led to some disappointment. The scenery was impressive but not as breathtaking as expected. This time, the Tiaoga Pass road, and Glacier Point were opened and I realized what Yosemite was about. Those rocks polished by the ages are almost surnatural and the view from Glacier Point is a testimony to the implacable force of nature. One doesn't get the same impression of humbleness as in Zion but one of empowerment borne from the ability to domine this sea of grey stones, to embrace in one eye blink vaste swathes of mountains and valleys. Yosemite also brings softness with its marriage of minerals and water. The Bridal Veil waterfall was a thin layer of water, blown away by the wind at the very moment it was leaving the riverbed to start a fall of several hundred feet down in the valley below. To be able to stand underneath the waterfall but not to hear its noise or feel the droplets is surreal and the name Bridal Veil gets all its meaning.
Yosemite Fall, at the opposite side of the valley next to the Capitan mountain, was dry, only the black marks left by the water on the rocks visible to the naked eyed.
Yosemite was formerly a huge Glacier that little by little melted away, carving the rocks in those amazing shapes. Before the valley was filled by ice, it was a green meadow and it slowly now returns to its initial shape and form, unless the climate or the landscape don't change again in cataclismic ways. But let's not forget that the story of the earth is one of cataclisms and nowhere else than in Yosemite it's being made so obvious.