Yosemite Nature Notes - 10 - Rock Fall 

What makes this man's video special is the full stereo surround sound of those rocks falling.

Oh my gosh! The sound of those boulders falling and listening to the thunderous roar of those collapsing rocks is quite spectacular!

Great video! Thanks for putting it together!!

Thanks for loading this. Very interesting.

Amen. Life, and every facet of it, ALWAYS comes down to the choices we make.

Was in Yosemite for the Happy Isles rock slide, such an insane and profound memory for me. Such pandemonium throughout the park, the dust, animals and people running around, sirens going off. Wild!

The rockfall I heard while on Challenger Point in Colorado on Aug 1, 2012 was incredible sounding. I didn't see anything because there was a ridge obscuring my view but the sound echoed through the whole Willow Lake valley. The sound alone was awe inspiring. 3:06 on this video reminded me of that sound.

For sure, one of the most spectacular place that a have chance to know. Such a wonderful natural landscape ever❤️

Great video guys, very interesting. Love Yosemite

You can really get an idea of how tall the valley walls are by how slow the falling rocks are falling. Great footage!

I love this series of videos.

Amazing footage

January 2020 was the first time I got to see Yosemite national. Flew my mom out there for her 70th birthday. We also went to Alcatraz, Muir woods and Lake Tahoe. California state railroad museum in Sacramento was very interesting as well. Plus Stetson beach, just north of Muir woods is worth checking out.

Wow, Great footage!!

Great video...

I didn't read the whole book on rock falls, but I did read the Cliff Notes.

This is amazing! In October 30, 2001, just after 9/11 I was sleeping next to my girl " my 2000 Honda 1100 Aero Motorcycle" when at 04:54 I was woken for the second time that night. 1st by raccoons eating my dinner that I left on my bike. The next was what I just learned was a rock fall! I stood straight up in my sleeping bag for I her this freight train rolling through the Park. It was so Amazing . I described this to many friends over the years. In my dark warm dry in a light rain. This train was rolling through. I herd the break and all. Never knew what it was. I was mystified to now saw a video on one of many that take place! Thx so much Jim McIntosh Nantucket. My cycle journey across the country. Because of the rain the pass was closed that day & I could not get to Mono Lake. But many other adventures awaited that day all great. I met a mechanic in a local town just outside that park night of Halloween in a bar. He never went out but the kids were in town with the mrs and we struck up a conversation. After sometime he invited me back too his house for the night. A warm bed great. The next day he asked me to breakfast and go to work. I said sure, He had to fly to work everyday as an airplane mechanic. He took me up over Yosemite which was covered in snow from the previous night. What an experience I had!! You never know who you'll meet on the road. The nicest people. Thx Mr.

Very interesting. Thank you 🙏

beautiful.. I love that place..

Would absolutely love to hear the sound in person. Would also be absolutely terrified.

The booming sound just gives me chills

when mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you, and me...

this is beautiful

Great video.

Our family arrived and walked this area days before and then after the 2008 rockfall at Yosemite. It was incredible how much material collapsed.

Would love to see a time lapse of the next 1000 years 😁

Good catch very cool

nice bright summer sunny days coupled with very cool summer nights can cause rocks to warm up & expand and contract until a fissure forms

Thank you for the video. Fascinating. Sorry so many comments are nasty. Ignore them. Since I was a kid, I've always wanted to visit our national parks, especially Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Yellowstone. Now that I'm nearing retirement, maybe I can visit. Hopefully, I will find someone to share it with.

Those boulders would make amazing kitchen counter tops. :)

well,the BIG rocks laying around should tell everybody a story!

수많은 세월을견딘 바위산이지만, 저렇게 무너질때도 있네요, 처음 보았지만 암벽타시는 분들은 조심 조심해야할것 같습니다. 귀한 영상 잘 보았습니다.

I've enjoyed visiting Yosemite NP for 67 years now and am still curious as to why Camp Curry was sited many years ago amongst very large boulders that have fallen from Glacial Point directly above. Didn't the early developers realize that it might be hazardous to put a number of tent cabins in harm's way? A few years back, I sat at a picnic table in Happy Isles resting from a trek to the falls. When I got home a few weeks later (was it?), the news told of part of Glacier Point falling and wiping out part of Happy Isles. In fact the picnic table where I sat was crushed under tons of debris. Makes you think. On one of our trips I was taking photos from Glacier Point at about ten o'clock at night and the metal railing against which my tripod rested was rattling and shaking. At first, I thought some kids were climbing on the railing but it was late and no one could be seen. I realized it was an earthquake rumbling through. Makes you think. Periodic assessment of potential falls, as they do in Norway, should be done, in my opinion. In Norway, they use helicopters and a large metal ball on massive cables to loosen likely-looking pieces of cliff faces before they let go without warning and take lives. Frost expanding in cracks behind the rock faces loosen sections of the mountain walls. Seismic events contribute, too.

When I was young, I loved bouldering at Yosemite Falls. When climbing the big walls, especially on Royal Arches, there are huge gaps in the exfoliating granite slabs, between the slabs and the wall. It can really shake your confidence, because what if you set your protection on a huge slab, and that slab pops loose, with you on it? It would be your last ride.

Rock to rock talk would be interesting to listen to.

Witnessed what might very well be one of the most impressive rock falls a few years ago. Boulder was massive, and must have picked up some good momentum in its tumbling. When it finally became visible, it tumbled and launched so far away and violently from the cliff face, and so high up, and I don't think it contacted the cliff again before slamming into the ground. A SMALL piece broke off from it when it jutted out away from the face, and it must have been the size of a VW bug. Again, that was a small piece that broke off. We seemed to be directly under it. Pretty close to its landing zone. Started running after catching that glimpse, and all we could hear when it hit was the sound of twigs snapping, amplified by hundreds of times. Another rock fall I saw the next year was a really nice sight. It was a far away rock face clear in the open, and the massive rock fell right at the edge where the rock face meets the sky. So it was skylined/silhouetted, and when it disappeared behind the trees and hit the ground, I could feel it in my feet despite being maybe up to two miles away. I've only been there three times, for only two days each time, so it impressed on me the idea that this stuff happens frequent enough that one might be able to make it a sort of pasttime to try to spot rock falls.

Are all of Yosemite's landslide's confirmed or reported? My family and I had visited the landslide area behind Mirror Lake. The next day, we were up at Glacier Point and heard a loud boom. Looking in the direction of the sound, we saw dust in the area that we had just visited the day before. The date was 8-8-12. Thanks for any helpful input.

I've never seen a rockfall and usually visit about 8-10 times a year. If you go during spring melt you can hear boulders tumbling down Merced river.

When the mountains crumble to the sea, there will only be you and me.

I never knew before that this phenomena could exist

Yosemite is a living thing. Constantly changing. How I love it.

Since sound travels through granite at over 19,000 feet per second, why not use acoustic sensors to listen for cracking sounds, much like a siesmograph? They could be stationed remotely throughout the valley. And I work for cheap.

5:34 This guy looks pretty confident wearing a helmet while sitting under the cliff :D

rock and roll baby

That helmet's adorable. @5:57

Do you have a list of people who have gone missing in Yosemite national park?

Is Crescent Ridge still hanging on El Cap?

Man, what a view at 8:03!

As a boulderer, this process benefits me

My wife and I were there for the 2008 rock fall.....it happened after two or three days of solid rain.

Is there a way to manually dislodge problem areas, so they aren’t falling randomly?

that grigri rappel down a double rope looked terrifying in the beginning, hoping that was a fixed rope!

Interesting

Imagine sleeping in a hut right next to a 400 tonne boulder that fell out of the sky

I WAS THERE FOR THAT AUGUST 2009 ROCKFALL!

why does gravity surprise so many people?

The puff of dust shooting out horizontally before the rock begins to fall ?

Imagine all the counter tops one could make with those rockfalls. :)

5:10 I want to pitch my tent there for a week and feel the vibe off the rock

I was wandering around a rock pile when I noticed a huge overhanging ledge, then it occurred to me that the pile itself was a good habitat for bobcat or even a cougar, so I left.

what's that song called?

I would imagine that the rock falls that occur on clear days would be caused by the heating and cooling of the cliff faces. Anything from the rocks themselves, or the moisture that has seeped through. The temperature causing expanding and contracting would cause them to become fragile. Being thousands of lbs of weight, eventually it would just crack and fall.

Epic

Gosh, its true! a rolling stone does gather no moss!

Watching someone stand that close to the edge of a cliff with no railing just freaks me out. Watching someone climb under a sheer overhang like that gives me anxiety.

Sounds exactly like thunder insane.

7:26 Did he say, "Perdict"?

The Rocks wouldn't fall if you would stop playing that Scary Piano Music....

a few of the boulders shown are clearly glacial erratics......after spending over a decade in the Valley, I'm pretty clear about this, but that said, there are some....ass wholepin' huge boulders from slides around.....I remember the Arch Rock slide, in the nineties ,and watching friends from trail crew get ready to blast some of those big dads.......out of the impact zone.....

My gosh. If I had a laser scanner like that I’d have so many friends.

"Geologic time includes now."

Michael the song is by Philip Glass. Not sure which one but I know it is him. Sry I couldn't reply to you.

I mean I love these type of short videos but uhm why are there bongodrums playing which are commonly associated with Africa...Yosemite is in the US is it not?

theyre YUGE!

Yosemite has one of the highest count of missing people in that area. David with Missing 411 talks about strange disappearance that happens in the Yosemite national park! RU-vid Missing 411 to look deeper into what's taking these people!

I want a 400 ton boulder!

"What does the presence of lichen on boulders tell scientists? " Saved a click for you. 5:40

“FLEX SEAL!” Problem Solved!

We have earthquakes happening every day, I would think some of those would cause cracks in the granite as well...

wht kind of well adjusted person voted this a thumbs down ?

go take a walk over there and hang out for the next one

Your so young here!

the sound of rocks hitting makes me relaxe dunno bout u.

What rockfall...?

think about it, someday people will go to find some boulders around the base, and find old climbing bolts that were once up on the face, nutty

As a Human, I am feeling very, very small right now, as I should.

I did some calculations on that 200' x 100' x 20' piece of rock, that's 400,000 cubic feet of granite which weighs 175 pounds per cubic feet. The slab weighed 70,000,000 (70 Million) pounds and hit the ground at about 135 mph.

Trundeling.

all forestry compounds should be built at the base of large cliffs

I been there the tall ass rock canion mountain peeks what ever you call it its crazy it looks like prehistoric times it looks almost like a movie you would think that king kong really existed you have to see it it looks as amazing as seeing the giant trees at the redwoods up next to pelican bay state prison right by the oregon and California. Border

Good thing he’s wearing a helmet ...I was a little worried ⛑

How many people go missing per year in Yosemite? Answer that....

For GeoSci106 folks: photography & laser-mapping cliffs

And now in 2021 Yosemite national park is known for having the most disappearing people under strange circumstances of all the parks and forrests in America.

6:05 puts the degree of danger of this park into real perspective

Rockfalls have been happening there for only thousands of years? The Rockies are tens of millions of years old though.

"Fall mountains, just don't fall on me Go ahead on Mr. Businessman, you can't dress like me Nobody knows what I'm talking about I've got my own life to live I'm the one that's going to have to die When it's time for me to die So let me live my life the way I want to" Jimi Hendrix - If 6 Was 9 -

Just imagine. One day... mountains will one day cease to exist as everything is eroded or falls.

I think when a slab breaks off candy should come out.

Ya go right too the crash zone an stand there