This may be of interest only to Californians, but so be it...
On February 18 the
Patterson Irrigator posted a picture that appeared to show the Half Dome in Yosemite, visible from Patterson. (It's a little hard to see, but if you look closely it's there.)
The thing is, Patterson is in the Central Valley, about 100 miles from Yosemite. So the photo met with a very skeptical reaction. A lot of people simply refused to believe that Half Dome could be seen from that far away.
There was discussion of it on the
yosemite blog, and on
fredmiranda.com. People contacted the photographer, who
insisted the photo was real. And finally, photographer Tony Immoos decided to see for himself if Half Dome could be viewed from the Central Valley. He discovered that it could, and he
posted the pictures on Flickr.
So that settles that question. On a clear day, you can see Half Dome from the Central Valley. (Thanks to Jack for the link)
Comments
Half Dome would be a tiny feature among the terrain from that distance, not a prominant peak as depicted. But only if there was a direct line of sight from there, which there isn't.
Perhaps (or perhaps not) the original pic is a coincidence of lighting conditions and a confused photographer, but the "confirming" pic is a photoshop hoax derived from a famous photo spot within Yosemite Valley (maybe the hoaxter used this exact photo, from page 1 of googling):
Here is an airliner's view of Yosemite Valley looking from the west to the east with Half Dome highlighted:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_oCS6hO8xHrk/RcgL0yolhLI/AAAAAAAAAOc/UbIIay2OhbY/s1600-h/P6290213rafaHcaA
If Immoos' "photograph" was an actual view of half dome, why not drive drive out to either of the ridges in the foreground for the much more spectacular photograph?
It's laughable that someone can post a message calling these images photoshopped after so many people have been to the location in question, saw it for themselves and photographed it. Did you even go to Tony's flickr.com page and read any of the posts? It's real. It is there to be seen with the unaided eye. I've seen it. Your in California, get out there and take a look.
It seemed like the 2,000 cliff of the Southwest Face of Half Dome was out of scale if the base of the telephone poles was the horizon line. Actually the telephone poles are cut off by a long stand of tall trees.
Since the previous post I did look at the high res image and the verbage and both are certainly genuine.
Whoops.
It was Ansel Adams.
Dude,seriously? That shot was taken about 200-300 feet from Half Dome, if that. It was taken from the Diving Board and is mentioned on Tony's photo page, more than once, in his commentary and in the comments down below.
Still, it is a very odd photograph to me, due to the telephoto aspect of shooting up the gentle slope of the valley and forcing a false perspective. The horizon line must be somewhat below the dirt berm in the foreground.
The vertical face of Half Dome is about 2,000 feet and the summit is at 8,800 feet, so the horizon line must be located about 4 lengths of the face below the summit.
At least I didn't buy a box of lifwave patches or a puppy from a Nigerian missionary.