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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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!

Once upon a time, a reporter asked a long time Yosemite Interp Ranger where to find the best fall color, and the ranger replied, “About 3000 miles that way” and pointed east. Ok, so we’re not Vermont, when it comes to fall color. Most of our forests are coniferous, but Chris and I managed to find a few splashes of color today on our way from Yosemite Valley to Tuolumne.

The largest, most impressive display we saw were the oaks right at the 120/140 junction. There are splashes of color along the road as well – a couple of red Dogwoods, and some aspen groves, mostly below about 7000 feet.

The Valley is just starting to come into its own. In addition to the oaks at the junction, the roadways are overhung by increasingly golden leaves, and the dogwoods are getting pink. I haven’t been past the Maple near the Chapel, but it was starting to turn about a week ago, so I expect that it’s beautiful. Chris and I made a mental note to keep an eye on the river by Housekeeping Camp over the next few days. There is usually some nice foliage to be seen there when the leaves turn. LeConte Gully (MY gully) is becoming golden again with those narrow-leaved Golden Armada bushes. That isn’t the proper name for them, but Stavast has an amazing painting of them with that title, and it has stuck in my head that way. I remember those bushes provided a stunning foreground for a spectacular view of Half Dome when Tom and I were in that gully 2 years ago. [Note to anyone not familiar with my history with this gully: if you go up there watch for loose rock.]

At home in Yosemite West, the dogwoods have just started taking off. Although the trees in our front yard are only tinged with pink, there is a big bush near Bruce’s house that has gone brilliant in the last few days. The other neigborhood displays are getting there, but still need a few days to reach peak.

Driving up to Tuolumne a week ago, my neighbor noticed some nice golden color around Tenaya Lake, but by this weekend, it had gone mostly brown, or blown away. We did find some nice reddish ground cover around the small lakes/ponds behind Pothole Dome, which were beautiful in their own right, but I’m betting it was more impressive a week or two ago. Of course, Tuolumne is always beautiful in its own right, and every time I’m up there, I wonder why I don’t visit more often.