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We're on
Yosemite Creek
00:00:32
below Lower
Yosemite Falls,
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it's a cold early
April morning,
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and we're watching the
frazil ice formation.
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Frazil ice are these small
crystals of frozen mist
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that forms in Upper Yosemite
Falls and Lower Yosemite Falls.
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The particles of ice wash down
the stream with the liquid water
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in a flurry, a slushy,
slurpee, goopy mass
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that in many cases
flows like lava.
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So if you can imagine in your
mind a giant slurpee machine
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that is putting out millions
of gallons of slurpee
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into Yosemite Creek,
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it's not snow,
it's not ice,
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it's something
in the middle
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and to watch it move underneath
Yosemite Creek Bridge
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is pretty incredible.
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This is one of the
more unique phenomenon
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that you'll see
in Yosemite,
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if you're lucky enough to be
here in March and April,
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which is the prime
season for this,
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but it's an
amazing thing
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to watch something this
dynamic in Yosemite Creek.
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You see something that
the millions of visitors
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who come in the summertime
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never imagine
something like this.
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It behaves a little bit
like cement in some ways,
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where it stops and it forms
kind of a stationary piece
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and then the flowing pieces go
past that stationary piece.
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The ice will
surge into place
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and with enough
thickness it stops
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and the creek will flow
a different direction.
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The water will drain out of
where it has just deposited it,
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leaving this, what
looks like snow,
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but again, it's soft,
it's unconsolidated,
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you would plunge
right into that.
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Now we see this
dynamic change
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as the frazil ice has
built up its own levy
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and caused the channel to clog
up and it's coming toward us,
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we're going to have to
be ready to move here,
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as the Yosemite Creek in all of
its might is coming toward us.
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But you'll see this
lava flow effect,
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where the ice is
going to accumulate
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and build up
blockages
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that stop it from coming
in a certain direction.
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It's the full force
of Yosemite Creek,
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which can be up to say a
100 cubic feet per second,
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when that is moving along in a
place where we don't expect it,
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where engineering of building
roads and trails and bridges
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