fedak wrote:I know 50 to 100 years from now most of the area will be as vibrant as ever. BUT some of the area has so much granite that I don't believe growth will happen. I camped at Cherry Lake for years and that area I know was leveled. Contemplated going and taking a look. On the other hand it might be too depressing, maybe just don't go. My kids grew up there each summer for 12 years or so.
There are some areas that may well never recover because they burned so severely--it's a total moonscape in places. In other places the fire burned at low severity and had the effect of a controlled burn, and will be highly beneficial in preventing future fires from crowning. Some of the areas that burned in western Yosemite contained forests that were not to be believed--some of the best remaining mixed conifer forest left in the Sierra Nevada, containing many ponderosa pines, sugar pines, white fir and Douglas-fir up to 4-6 feet in diameter. That stuff won't be recreated within a century, if ever.
I had 20 long term forest research plots in the Park damaged or destroyed, between Hetch Hetchy and the Valley. Will not know the extent until they allow us back in there, when the tree fall hazard has subsided, hopefully next year.