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Here's another view of BridalVeil Falls. The valley above it is called a "hanging valley" since the Glacier left it hanging above the river it feeds. In the spring, fed by snow melt, Yosemite valley has more magnificent waterfalls than just about anywhere else in the world, including 2 of the 8 longest waterfalls in the world.

Here's a view of our bride in front of BridalVeil Falls. The falls are fed by a lake 10 miles to the south. To the left of the falls are formations called Cathedral Rocks. To the right is Leaning Tower.

On the right of the tunnel view is this area which looks like the glacier left unfinished. Here's a couple views.

This granite is part of a continuous geological formation called the Sierra Nevadas that line about 250 miles of the eastern edge of California. When continental plates collided about 200 million years ago, some hot magma rose to the surface and created volcanoes in the Cascades. More to the interior, the magma cooled into granite before the colliding plates pushed it to the surface here.

After the dramatic tunnel entrance, the road leads through the Merced river valley with meadows leading almost flat to the rising granite monoliths on each side.

The next few photos are of the Yosemite Falls -- 3 separate falls that together make up the 6th or 7th longest known waterfall in the world at 2425 feet (and the longest in North America) It has water most of the year but not in a dry fall.

The upper falls at 1430' are the longest. The Middle Cascades, are 625' and the lower is 320'. The base is a short hike from the bus stop and is highly populated during the summer months. (We were lucky and found the crowds to be minor during the first week of June.)

These falls are the highest known in North America (but Niagara cranks out a much larger volume of water).

This photo shows the three levels of the Yosemite Falls across a typical Yosemite meadow: mountains without foothills.

Here's Jane with the Yosemite Falls in the background.

This photo was taken at the base of the Yosemite Falls where visitors congregate. In the winter, a snow cone forms here, sometimes 300' high and covering 4 acres -- before vanishing in April.

We ended our Tuesday hikes with 4.4 mile loop up the Tenya Canyon, carved by the Tenya creek. On one side we have Mount Watkins...

And on the other we have Ahwiyah Point (left) and the famous Half Dome (but not looking like much of a dome from this angle as we are looking at the "flat" side).

The Tenya Creek forms Mirror Lake at its base. We had to look hard to find this reflection. Before 1971, this lake was continually dredged to provide sand to coat the icy winter roads. This gave the lake a much larger unsilted area to reflect its tall granite neighbors. We'll see a higher view in a few more pictures.

This was the same Yosemite Valley we saw the day before -- but by looking down from the south rim. Several great views can be had (some take a modest amount of hiking) from the Glacier Dome Road which meanders high above the Yosemite Valley. Our first stop was Washburn point where we stitched together this panorama. At center is the iconic Half Dome. About halfway to the right, is Liberty Cap at nearly 7100'. During the last ice age, the glacier rose over 1000' feet above Liberty Cap! This was a serious piece of snow that carved these U-shaped valleys. The rounded tops in the middle of the picture are typically glacier carved. The high pointed peaks in the distance were too tall for the glaciers to sculpt and so they retained their points (however, the glaciers carved their sides up considerably. At middle left is ..

...the Tenaya canyon formed by the creek of the same name with the help of several glaciers and a whole lot of time. We had hiked the sides of this the day before.

Here's another view from Glacier point -- stitched together with the "Grand Staircase" of two waterfalls at center. The next day we would hike up the sides of these.

Here's the same picture with the mountains wearing name tags for a geological cocktail party. To see what's what, cut and paste this link into another browser window and click a few times to get actual size: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/usa/california/yosemite/2008_06_04_Ca_Yosemite_Glacier_point_panorama_load_text.JPG -- then join the party but make sure you pour your drink over a lot of ice.

We're now back on the rim. At center is Half Dome; we are looking at the sheer side -- Nirvana for serious rock climbers who can choose from 12 trails (ropes?) to take them up the vertical Northwest side first conquered in 1957.

This photo shows why this area is nicknamed the "Giant Staircase": Below is the 317' drop (officially only 240') of the Vernal Falls into the Merced river; above is the 594' Nevada Falls of the same river. A few days later, we drove the edge of the Merced as it grew steadily wider but much less forceful.

A close-up of the Vernal Falls. A paved hiking trail makes a walk up to the base of the falls accessible for most. To reach the top, however, requires walking the Mist Trail which sprays water on hikers as they climb the granite steps of the granite staircase. We'll see our pictures from there in a few minutes.

The upper falls of the Merced River is called Nevada falls. To get to it requires a steep hike up scenic switchbacks -- and the better part of an afternoon.

This next set of pictures were taken at Glacier Point looking across from the southern rim of Yosemite Valley. Here's Half Dome at 8,842 feet. Obviously since its top is rounded, it was not as tall as the many glaciers that smoothed this single piece of granite.

At top center right is Mount Star King at 9,092' -- as the Sierra Nevadas move from west to east, they typically get higher. The plate shifted backward towards the San Andreas fault several million years ago, raising the east end upwards. The tallest mountain in the contiguous 48 states is Mount Whitney at the eastern edge of the Sierras -- at 14,500 '.

A view of Tenaya Canyon from Glacier Peak. The two domes at upper left are North Dome and Baker Dome. At about 7500 feet, their tops were rounded by a glacier that rose another 1000 feet and expanded the U-shaped Tenaya Canyon now tree lined below. Think of the Tenaya Creek cutting a V-shaped gouge over the eons -- and then a set of Glaciers (maybe 10!) turning that V into a wide U.

Here's the three-tier 2,425' Yosemite Falls as seen from Glacier Point. It is fed entirely by snow melt from a nearly 50 square mile area and is seen at about peak flow here in early June. This is the highest waterfall in North America -- yet the valley below is nearly flat. Why?