Quercus x chasei (Chase oak) or Q. x morehus (Oracle oak) in Juniper Camp. After last week, I reviewed where iNaturalist had flagged other hybrid oaks. There were sightings here. That looks like a semi-evergreen oak. It's just north of site 34.

Quercus x chasei (Chase oak) or Q. x morehus (Oracle oak). I lean toward the first but am unsure. The leaves identify this as one of the two. More leathery and less flat than the leaves I saw last week: suggestive maybe of chasei. Not all that ovate though.

Quercus x chasei or Q. x morehus. With the curl, this could almost be a coast live oak leaf. That suggests Q. chasei, but CalPhotos has pictures of Q. x morehus with that curl too. All those lateral veins suggest Q. x morehus too.

Quercus x chasei or Q. x morehus. Shape on this leaf is more ovate that obovate - chasei. (But some other leaves were the reverse.) Fewer lateral veins - chasei. No axilliary hairs - morehus. Not much curl - morehus.

Quercus x chasei (Chase oak) or Q. x morehus (Oracle oak). INaturalist reports call this Q. chasei. I'm lean that way but remain unsure. Ertter writes of a tree "below Juniper Camp". This one is right in camp. Is there a 2nd nearby?

Erysimum capitatum (western wallflower). First non-woody wildflower of the year. On the Deer Flat Road, just outside Juniper Camp.

Nice view to the Sierras from near the Deer Flat Road - Burma Road junction. I think that's the Crystal Range. I adjusted the tone and upped the clarity and contrast some to show the mountains well, although they were quite visible by eye.

Bald Ridge with the North Peak behind from just a little farther along the Deer Flat Road. It is getting a little greener.

Deer Creek. Well, there's water. Some.

Arctostaphylos glauca (big berry manzanita) on the Bald Ridge Trail. Some bushes, like this, had a fair number of flowers, but a great many look to have aborted most of their flower buds, owing to the dry winter.

On the Bald Ridge Trail.

Around to Devil's Elbow now, with the familiar view. Hard to tell this burned 7-1/2 years ago.

A view down to the Rhine Canyon area gives me the same feeling. There's some burnt-out stuff here and there, but overall a new normal seems to have established itself.

Devils Pulpit as I work my way up the social trail between Devils Elbow and the Pulpit. A few more signs of the old fire here, but it still looks good. You can see the Sierras too, although this shot has no editing to highlight them. In this direction they are farther away -- the Yosemite area? -- than in the view from the Deer Flat Road.

Boechera breweri (Brewer's rockcress) along the Mary Bowerman Trail. No bloom yet.