Base Jumping Raven

Yosemite National Park was the first land set aside to be protected in the United States as the Yosemite Grant. Originally, Abraham Lincoln signed the first park bill in 1864 setting aside Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove. Mariposa Grove is where Galen Clark, a conservationist who had been diagnosed with consumption and given 6 months to live, went "to take my chances of dying or growing better, which I thought were about even." He spent the rest of his life there educating people on the wonder of the Sequoias and lobbying successfully for their protection. He died at 96 years old.

Two years later the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove became a State Park and in 1890 the area surrounding the State Park became a National Park. In 1903 while camping near Galcier Point together, John Muir convinced Theadore Roosevelt to unify all three areas into one National Park which he did in 1906 creating the Yosemite National Park we know today.

I hiked up to the Museum in Mariposa Grove looking at trees and birds and squirrels and chipmunks, listening to birds of all sorts, smelling the burnt land left by "managed fires" that had been set recently along the trail and other smells I remember of California from when I was there as a child. It's not much of a Museum but a fine destination none the less. It is a small, long cabin with a porch running the full length of the front with three steps also running the full length of the porch. A large black bird was trying to get up the courage to climb these steps to get to a back pack left unattended and open a little too near a couple entirely involved in attempting to fashion some sort of child carrier on the man out of an enormous scarf. This bird eventually gave up and went about other business. Later, near the trailhead chatting with a Tram driver giving her passengers a stretch, the conversation turned naturally to birds and she informed me these large black birds were Common Ravens. She also related that she had befriended one up by the Museum that had a penchant for backpacks. I told her I knew her bird.

Glacier Point, where Teddy and John Muir camped, is where one goes for the spectacular view that is the attraction to Yosemite National Park. According to one of the many informative plaques displaying historical information, trivia, maps and descriptions of features Glacier Point is some 3200 feet above the floor of the Yosemite Valley and overlooks fully one quarter of the park. One such placard presents "Overhanging Rock" at 7200 feet, presumably above sea level. Overhanging Rock is the quintessential rock in every other episode of The Road Runner inevitably bringing about yet another demise of Wile E. Coyote. I had been aware, audibly, of a a Raven in the vicinity. Ravens have a peculiar call I will not attempt to describe here. A short time later, this Raven landed on Overhanging Rock where he raucously announced his presence until he had gathered an audience of a dozen or so tourists and photographers whence he calmly and deliberately stepped off the edge. Nose first, wings folded, out of sight. I don't know if he was inviting us to join him or saying "hey, watch this" but I had definitely seen a base jumping Raven.