Two weeks ago, Tom and took a leisurely walk through Cook’s Meadow and noticed that the Redwing Blackbirds had returned for the spring season. It’s warm and sunny again, but after the intervening storm, I got to thinking about those optimistic birds, and what they made of the intemperate weather. Finally got around to drawing it out.

Actually, the warm temperature has created trouble of its own for us. All the melting snow is slowly puddling up on our property, and Tom spent the day digging a drainage trench and carrying buckets of water out of our crawl space. Fortunately, DNC facilities let me borrow a sump pump so that we’re not going to have to do that in shifts throughout the night! Tomorrow’s forecast for warm rain over all that snow uphill of us still has us biting our nails, but it’s going to be ever so much better with that pump!

In a certain twist of irony, as we battle too much water in the crawlspace, we’re also dealing with no water in the tap. The county guys have been here for a couple of days and with all the snow and melting they can’t even find the source of the leak, much less work on repairing it. The water has been out for about a week now, and the county has decided to save money by not having their crews work through the weekend.

We’ll be fine, of course. It’s like camping, with the bonus of heat and electricity, but after the big storm, lots of us are ready for a return to normal, and of course the renters that had planned to stay this weekend weren’t very excited about the lack of water. We found them a place to stay in El Portal, at Yosemite View Lodge, so they’ll be fine, but we’re sad to see them go.

Even old-timers in Yosemite hadn’t seen so much snow in 30 years. The storms started the weekend of March 19, and kept going through 11-15 feet. That’s right. Feet. Of. Snow. Roads closed as trees and rocks fell across the road, and plows failed to keep up with the snow. Power lines were also hit, knocking out power across the region – leaving people without lights, and without heat. On top of that, in our neighborhood of Yosemite West, our archaic water system sprung a leak, cutting off our water supply. For one night both the generator for communications and the battery back-up to that generator failed leaving residents deprived also of phone contact.

Tom and I missed most of the drama. Returning from a wonderful weekend in Bishop visiting a friend, we saw no need to wait for the convoy and fight our way INTO that situation when we had wonderful welcoming friends who were willing to host us for a few days. While friends dealt with 42 degree INDOOR temps, no hot showers, and the like, we were taking walks in the central valley sun, having dinner with friends, watching movies IN THE MOVIE THEATER – a rarity for us, and telecommuting happily from our computers, showering, doing laundry and enjoying central heat.

The thing that is really great about situations like this one is the way people come together and take care of each other. We had some renters staying in our house that first weekend, and are so grateful to all of the neighbors that pitched in to help make sure they were doing OK – raiding our upstairs apartment for non-cordless telephones that would work without power for them, shoveling and plowing, checking in, and helping to share information. (It helped that we had really cool renters too.) You can feel the community pulling together.

When we finally did return to the park on Sunday, we were greeted by many neighbors as we made our way down the single plowed lane to our house. One neighbor who’d stayed through the entire ordeal, and had been doing daily shoveling duty wandered down to our house with his shovel over his shoulder to help us dig out. Another neighbor with a bobcat plowed through the 10-11 foot berm in front of our driveway and created a spot for us to park, a third neighbor took some extra time with a plow to clear our street, and widen the mouth of the parking spot, and a forth neighbor, having finished his driveway drove down later to make sure we were doing OK. How could we not be OK with awesome neighbors like that?

That’s my Yosemite.

What an exciting week this has been!

Our planned trip to the East Side to visit a friend in Bishop was a catalyst for being on the outside of a whole bunch of crazy that has been going on in Yosemite. The stay in Bishop was wonderful. Ahough we didn’t get in as much skiing as we had anticipated, we enjoyed hanging out and being out of the valley.
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When I looked out the front window, I saw a whole family running back and forth outside our house – sliding happily down the street in their plastic sleds. They’d been at it for an hour at least, and didn’t show any signs of stopping soon. Snow brings so much joy to the mountains! I consider shouting to them that there is an even better sledding street around the corner, but they’re having so much fun, I decide to just let it be.

Snow also brings some travel headaches. My plans to get up early and catch a quick ski in the morning before work, turned into an hour of shoveling and snow-blowing, only to find out that the road to Badger Pass is closed for the day due to snow. Unfortunately, when we get a heavy snow like this, the plows just can’t keep up, and they focus on keeping the main roads clear instead. Even so, Hwy 41 was listed as R3 for most of the morning, meaning that all vehicles were required to use chains, even those with 4WD (rare!), and Hwy 120 was closed entirely for snow removal.

If only the snow had come a week ago, it would have been perfect. As it is, holiday travelers are struggling to get into the park, or making decisions to stay home instead. I hope the family renting our downstairs apartment make it here safely! The conditions are going to be fantastic.

Lately, the weather keeps conspiring to precipitate on weekends only. Tioga keeps closing, and then re-opening in the sunny 60-70 degree weather during the middle of the week while I’m working. Fortunately, this weekend, the rain/snow forecast was a bit late in coming, and even though we slept in until almost noon, the road stayed open just long enough for Tom and I to hop in the trusty Subaru and take a peek.

I don’t know how many leaves this most recent storm will knock to the ground, but the autumn colors were magnificent on our drive, and we stopped, oohed and aahed, and snapped pictures. There are elderberries growing alongside the road, blue and tasty next to the reds and yellows of dogwoods and big-leaf maples. Western foliage season isn’t like its eastern counterpart. There are so many conifers here that the colors are just patches of flame against the cool greens of the firs, cedars, and pines. Not the same, but still beautiful.

When we got to Tuolumne, the skies were a dramatic blend of storm clouds and blue sky, and we walked the slabs to the top of Lembert Dome for a view. There were several other cars in the Lembert Dome parking area, but once we left the parking lot, we didn’t see anyone else. At the summit, we were treated to a few minutes of snow before it cleared up again. By the time we were halfway back down the slabs, the sun was warm on our backs again.

On the drive, we listened to the audiobook version of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I was so impressed with Dave Eggers’ talk on Ted.com, that I was really looking forward to this story. We’re a little less than three full chapters into it at this point, and I’m afraid to turn it back on. It’s not that it isn’t good writing. It’s powerful writing. And the craziness of losing two parents to cancer inside of a year and having to raise your younger brother… hearing about it makes me a little crazy too. So, I took a break from that by reading City of Thieves by David Benioff. You wouldn’t think that a WWII story about the craziness of war in and around Leningrad would be much of an emotional break from craziness, but there it is. The introductory chapter is absolutely brilliant, and I had no idea until afterward that this is also the writer that is responsible for screenplays for Troy, X-men Origins: Wolverine, and The Kite Runner. A look at his highly acclaimed first novel, The 25th Hour is in order.

It’s a cold almost-November day, 40 deg and raining, and everywhere I looked this morning, there were photographers, with their big cameras on tripods set up next to the road, wearing their rain gear and happily snapping away. Serious photographers are a unique bunch here – it’s like they bloom when the skies turns dark and cloudy, the rain starts to fall, and other people are grousing about the awful weather. But it’s easy to understand why. The clouds and fog skirting the big cliffs make them seem that much more majestic and mysterious. And no one, not even Ansel Adams, has seen just exactly this play between the clouds and the light. Heaven.

My own morning’s photographic exploits were more modest, and more furtive. There was a tiny dusting of snow at the top of our neighborhood this morning, hanging in the changing leaves along the side of the road, and I stopped to snap a photo out of my car window. (The visitors might stop randomly in the middle of the road for deer or bear, but me, I stopped for a couple of snowflakes. I need to remember to be more patient when others see something photogenic. But, for the record, I did check behind me to make sure I wasn’t on a blind corner, took only 2 quick snapshots and was moving again before anyone else came up behind me.) Snow on the ground. Ski season is coming up fast.

Over breakfast, I read Tom’s copy of TUNA News, by a nordic ski group out of Utah. Lord knows why we get their publication – something Tom did at some point. There is new ski gear in the catalogs we receive daily in the mail, and I’m contemplating new AT boots to go with the big plans I’m making for this ski season. I’m always excited about snow, but this year I’m preparing for long weekends in the high country, in Tahoe, or if I’m really ambitious, over on the East Side. October 22nd was my 4th Boulder Day, and it seems like a long time, but I finally feel like I’m in the position to get back into ski shape. The first few years after the boulder event, I just didn’t feel like I could take the pounding, and last year there were so many house projects that we didn’t seem to be able to find the time. This year, everything is coming together.

I’m now on day 20 of my new fitness program, and already starting to see some results. I’ve lost some weight overall – just a couple of pounds – but between fat loss and muscle gain, I can see some significant differences in the way that my body looks, and those pants that were getting too small are starting to feel comfortable again. Most importantly, I’m feeling stronger than I have in a long time. Years. Long enough that I’d forgotten what it was like, and what it’s like, is good.

The program I’m on is only 30 days long, and so I’m shopping for a new program. I checked out the Mountain Athlete program because, that seems pretty sport-specific. Lots of functional movement and sport-specific exercise. Tom mentioned a guy named Eric Cressey who is well-known for building strength. Tom also thinks that between us, we know enough that I could probably design something good for me without spending a bunch of money – which is certainly true – but for some reason, I work out a lot harder when I’m on someone else’s program. So, I’m still shopping (and taking recommendations if anyone has them), but committed to finding something in the next few weeks.

A serious program might have to wait until after our vacation to Hawaii though. Can you believe it? After years of planning mountain vacations and family vacations, Tom and I are finally headed to the beach, just the two of us. Running on the beach, surfing?, hiking near Haleakala, exploring the Road to Hana, resting, reading, and relaxing. I’m looking forward to the change of pace.

The other new season that is just around the corner is NaNoWriMo. Last year, not only did I finish the challenge of writing 50K words during the month, not only did I enjoy spending hours typing up a story that no one will ever read, I also managed to learn something in the process. Naturally, I’m excited to do it again this year. November is only two days away.

Lots of new things starting for me. New season. New fitness level. New commitment to play. New exercise program. New NaNoWriMo challenge. Life is good.

Yesterday, the National Weather Service was calling for a winter weather advisory in effect starting at 6pm, and it started to rain, hard, at my office in the Valley about 5:45pm. When I drove up to the house from work, the snow level was right at the Wawona Tunnel. I drove in one end in the middle of the spring rain, and came out the other end in a winter blizzard. It was a bit Alice in Wonderland, and completely delightful. MM, who came for dinner last night, says that it seems like that happens a lot – the rain snow transition in the tunnel – and we tried to figure out why that would be. Nothing we came up with seems particularly plausible. Probably Magic.

This morning there was about 5-6 inches of snow on the ground at our house, and of course, before we could get out of the driveway the plow came by and buried us in a good deal more. Fortunately, I have an excellent snow removal service – Tom + shovel, and we were able to get out with a bit of slipping and sliding but nothing major.

Back in the Valley this morning, the big features were all lost in the clouds, but I thought the patches of green grass surrounded with snow were particularly striking.

Yesterday, it was spring – warm weather, wildflowers, sunshine. This morning, I woke up and there was a kid sledding down the street in front of my house. Just a reminder that weather can change quickly in the mountains, and just because the calendar says it is now spring, doesn’t mean diddly squat in terms of what to prepare for outside.

This morning Badger Pass was buried under 18 inches of new snow (at 7200 ft), we had around a foot here at our house in Yosemite West (~5300 ft), and someone in the Valley said that they even had accumulations of 5 inches or so. I wonder if it snowed down as far as the bright fields of poppies that everyone has been so crazy about lately, and also whether any intrepid soul managed to get a picture of the poppies with some snow on them. That would have been a unique picture to get.

There was, unfortunately, so much snow that Badger Pass didn’t open today – much to the chagrin of DP who is here from FL and was hoping to get a day of skiing in during his trip. I hope he’ll be able to squeeze some time in tomorrow to get a few runs. Tom and I are planning to have dinner with him this evening at the Mountain Room. I love the food at the Mountain Room, and I’m looking forward to that for sure!

Today’s the first day of Daylight’s Savings, and Tom, in his typically astute fashion, points out that it should be a National Holiday. The rate of accidents increases when the times shift because people have messed up sleep schedules. It would be much safer to have an extra day on the weekend to adapt. Plus, in this case, it gives us more of a chance to celebrate the long evening hours.

We piled a bunch of friends in to the car today and wandered down canyon to take pictures of the wildflowers. It was a gorgeously warm and sunny day, and the poppies, as everyone has been claiming, are out in force already this year. When we stopped at Hites Cove, we also saw huge clusters of blooming Popcorn flowers, Blue Dicks, Gold Fields, Shooting Stars, Baby Blue Eyes… and all the flowers that we don’t know or can’t remember. It’s an amazing display. The lupines aren’t out yet, and I always look forward to the Fairy Lanterns, so I suspect we’ll be taking more trips down there to watch the spring bloom.

When we got back to Yosemite West, it was almost shocking to see the amount of snow that was still there. Being able to drive back and forth between seasons is like getting to travel through time. Turns out, Spring is only about 5 miles from Winter, as the crow flies.

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With all the snow that has been falling lately in Yosemite, Tom and I have been taking advantage of having Badger Pass basically in our backyard. Even on weekends that we have dedicated to working on house projects, we can often manage to sneak in a least a few turns. Not only has the snow been falling, but it’s been falling low and light, which makes for excellent skiing.

On a personal note, this year I’m starting to feel like it would be OK again for me to get shaken up a little bit, and take a few falls, if you know what I mean. I’m still pretty tentative, but on a relative basis it’s a huge step up from where I was last year. When the snow was firmer I got in a few runs on the NASTAR course, trying to go as fast as I could, and now I’m hitting some rougher terrain with more confidence, and taking some falls. I keep thinking it would be fun to ski some steeps in Tahoe one of these weekends, but of course there is always so much to do.
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