Welcome to Yosemite National Park
on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
More than 100 million years ago,
the earliest granite of the Sierra started to form
deep underground in the Triassic period.
Four million years ago,
an island arc collided with the west coast
of North America
and the range started to uplift,
producing a set of mountains in an event called
the Nevadan orogeny.
Erosion by glaciers exposed the granite,
formed the mountains and cliffs of the range,
and transformed the rolling hills and meandering streams
of pre-Pleistocene Yosemite
into the colossal landscape of the present.
Indian tribes - the Paiute, Sierra Miwok, and Ahwahneechee
lived in the Yosemite area
for thousands of years before the first non-indigenous
people entered it.
The first non-Indian visit to this area
was probably made by the Joseph Walker expedition in 1833.
It was not until 1851 when the existence
of the magnificent Yosemite Valley became known.
The Mariposa Battalion was sent to the area
to extinguish an ongoing conflict between gold miners
seeking their fortune and the resident Native Americans.
When the battalion entered Yosemite,
word of the land's beauty quickly spread.
Enjoy my pictures:
This is Bridalveil Fall.
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