2001-12-02 04:00:00 PDT Yosemite National Park -- Yosemite National Park
Late on a winter afternoon in Yosemite Valley, the mist rises like smoke from the snow-quilted meadows. It hangs among the black oaks and rolls up the fissures in the granite cliffs. The roar of Yosemite Falls has diminished to a sigh. Out to the west, El Capitan hangs like an enormous curtain, suspended open at the wings of some monumental stage.
In the off season, Yosemite Valley, the centerpiece of Yosemite National Park, has always seemed to me more poised for drama than in the touristy summer. The slant of light, the flowing fogs, the frozen pools, the long shadows - they all seem informed with magic and hidden meanings. Always a spiritual place, Yosemite feels even more so in the cathedral silence of winter, more a place of renewal and solace.
Yet there's plenty of fun, too. Kids plod through the woods on snowshoes. Teens race around the ice rink. Free buses roll out every morning, bound for Badger Pass with loads of excited skiers - both cross-country and downhill - and snowboarders. Whimsical snowmen with twiggy arms and pine-cone eyes sprout in the meadows.
The Park Service rangers and the food-and-lodging people, freed from the crush of summer tourists, seem more welcoming, more personable. The convenient free shuttle buses run frequently all around the valley, so once you arrive you can park your car and not use it again until you depart for home.
For 40 years, I've been traveling to Yosemite Valley in all seasons, and the special beauties of winter have made it my favorite time. I sit by a fire with an absorbing book or putter around the museum, visitor center and Ansel Adams Gallery. I go skating on the country's most scenic ice rink - directly below Glacier Point, with a full-on view of Half Dome. I follow the trails to my favorite haunts - on skis when there's snow enough, in hiking boots when the ground is bare.
Even when it's raining, I think it's a hoot to don a rain jacket and big rubber boots and go sloshing about in the puddles and squishy meadows. I love the sounds of Yosemite in the rain: the patter in the oak trees, the irritated jays, all those ephemeral falls trickling to life.
Plus, I know I -won't be bored. There's usually some kind of interpretive program or entertainment happening: storytelling, sing-alongs, films, history talks and nature walks. Once last winter I went to an evening talk on "Ravens and Crows," and ranger Karen Amstutz appeared in the Ahwahnee Great Lounge wearing a raven costume, flapping her arms and cawing.
During the off season the venerable Ahwahnee Hotel is the setting for some appealing indoor events: the Vintners' Holidays, Bracebridge Dinner, Chefs' Holidays and the new Yosemite Winter Literary Conference. It was at a Chefs' Holiday that I lapped up one of the most memorable dishes of my life: a sorbet of champagne and Douglas fir, concocted by guest chef Hartmut Handke from Ohio.
It was like eating a snowy forest.
Depending on my fortunes, I've spent winter nights at the Yosemite Lodge, the Ahwahnee and the cabins without a bath. I've shivered in my sleeping bag in the tent-cabins at Curry Village. Lodging in Yosemite Valley is at its most reasonable during the winter, especially mid-week. And now 60 of the canvas tent-cabins at Curry Village even have gas heaters - although you still have to venture outside to the communal bathrooms.
For the really hardy or well-equipped, a couple of campgrounds are open: Upper Pines for RV and car camping, Camp 4 (Sunnyside) for walk-ins. My most recent winter visit was this past February, to attend the first annual Yosemite Winter Literary Conference, with seminars and readings by Terry Tempest Williams, Gretel Erlich, James Houston and other chroniclers of the American West.
As if compelling literature in a magnificent place -weren't enough, I threw my Nordic skis into my car because I knew there had been a big snowfall in the valley. Back in the late 1960s I'd learned cross-country skiing at Yosemite, as well as how to construct a snow cave for backcountry winter camping. Slept in it, too.
As soon as I'd checked into my room at the lodge, I jumped onto my skis and headed up the unplowed bicycle trail. The snow was littered with black oak leaves. A raven, obsidian incarnate, flapped across the meadow. I went striding past the Ahwahnee and crossed the tranquil green Merced River twice, passing beneath the Royal Arches and Washington Column, scenes of my long-ago rock-climbing forays.
Along the way I encountered perhaps 30 other people - four on skis, a dozen on snowshoes, the rest slogging miserably on foot. I even saw an amazing young man with no legs, his torso strapped to a sled, poling himself up the trail.
After a couple of miles I came to Tenaya Creek, and skied along its banks to Mirror Lake, at the east end of the valley. A little water, still and glassy, had collected in the vanishing lake, reflecting the forbidding gray face of Half Dome, half-curtained by clouds.
Next morning at the Literary Conference, writer-publisher Malcolm Margolin talked about Yosemite Valley when the Ahwahneechee people lived here, in those halcyon summers before the white man came.
"It was not a wilderness then," he said, "but a cultural landscape. The hands of Indians were all over the place."
They burned the valley floor to foster the black oak acorn crop; the basket- weavers pruned the redbud and willow. Their legends involving people, mythic beings and animals were embedded in the waterfalls and rock formations in a "humanized landscape" all around them.
I had glimpsed some of this one dark, rainy morning earlier in the winter. Folding my umbrella, I stepped into the Yosemite Museum, which displays a fine collection of Miwok and Paiute artifacts. There, as usual, the renowned basket- maker Julia Parker, a Pomo/Miwok Indian, sat in a corner quietly at work. Today she was sizing strips of redbud.
I watched for a while, then tentatively began asking questions, trying to probe the great mystique of California Indian basketry. She told me that many of the plants preferred for basket designs, like sedges and brackenfern roots, "love to have their feet soaked in water," and that many things can influence the shape of the basket - the strength of her hand, when and where the fibers were collected. "Even some of my own baskets are thick, or fine, or big or small," she said.
Looking up, she added, "If the Phone Cover redbud -doesn't like you, you -won't get a basket." Then, concentrating again on her work, "Baskets change, people change.
It's a never-ending story."
A few other visitors entered the museum, bringing their children I4 Triple Frame to watch Parker. So I moved away to the display cases, peering at obsidian points, ceremonial headpieces, an owl-feather dance cape that looked like woven snowflakes.
Outside the back door of the museum, an interpretive trail wanders through a reconstructed Ahwahneechee village, with a dwelling, acorn-storage shelter, a sweat lodge, a roundhouse and grinding rocks. It seems especially evocative in winter.
Next door is another good foul-weather stop: the Visitor Center. Here one can learn a lot about Yosemite by studying the exhibits on such things as granite, bears, fire, pioneer history and arts, and the glaciers that sculpted the valley during the Ice Ages. Over by the big windows is my favorite item: a large relief map of the entire park, showing the canyons of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, and the vast roadless wilderness of peaks and creeks and meadows. And, in the newly refurbished West Auditorium, an award-winning and stunning new film, "Spirit of Yosemite," plays every hour.
When it's not raining or snowing and the ground is dry, winter hiking on the valley floor is exhilarating - and the trails are mostly level. Sometimes the bridges are frosty, the mats of fallen oak leaves outlined in white rime. The air is bracing, there are few other hikers on the trails and evidence that Yosemite Valley is a work-in-progress is audible: rocks falling, ice crackling.
And there's a better chance of seeing wildlife. Once, walking alone near Camp Curry, I spent half an hour watching a bobcat meandering through the woods on an early morning hunt.
Most visitors know about the short walks, ranging from half a mile to two miles, to Bridalveil Fall, Mirror Lake, Lower Yosemite Fall and the bridge below Vernal Fall. But not many realize that a 13-mile trail runs all the way around the valley at the base of the cliffs. It's called the Valley Floor Loop,
and it can take all day to hike if you stop at various landmarks. At the west end of the valley, it crosses the Merced River at Pohono Bridge. In many areas there are interpretive signs - from one of these I learned, for example, that California has more species of oak than anywhere else on earth. And near Sentinel Bridge, the Yosemite Fund has built a new interpretive trail on boardwalks across Cook's Meadow.
On full-moon nights, Yosemite Valley is especially dazzling in winter. I like to bundle up and walk the bicycle paths into the meadows, and look up to the neon-bright snow blanketing the high country, wrapped like an ermine cloak around Half Dome. Moonlit mists sift through the firs and journey along the great walls. Afterward, it's nice to go inside - say, to the Curry Village guest lounge, or to those big comfy couches in the Ahwahnee Great Lounge - and settle down by the radiant hearth, with a book or maybe even a snifter of brandy.
When, on a March morning, I last drove out of the valley, snow from a fresh fall lingered on my car roof. But just outside the park in the Merced River canyon, early wildflowers were already blooming.
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE: Of the several routes to Yosemite from the Bay Area, Highway 140 through Mariposa is the most reliable in winter. But on it and all other routes, carry chains. You can also go via Amtrak; buses meet the trains in Merced and carry passengers to Yosemite Valley. In winter, Yosemite Area Regional Transit buses provide round-trip service from various communities along Highway 140 between Merced and the park. Get information toll-free at (877) 989-2787.
GETTING IN: Park entrance fee is $20 per vehicle, good for a week. An annual pass is $40.
WHERE TO STAY: In winter, lodging in Yosemite Valley includes some 550 rooms - in Curry Village, Yosemite Lodge and the Ahwahnee, all run by Yosemite Concessions Services. Prices range from $49 per night for a heated canvas tent- cabin to $326 per night at the Ahwahnee. Midweek in winter, a room at Yosemite Lodge is $96 for one or two people; children under 12 can stay free. You can get a good look at the various deals at www.yosemitepark.com. For reservations,
call (559) 252-4848, or write Reservations, Yosemite Concession Services, 5410 East Home Ave., Fresno, CA 93727.
CAMPING: Campsites at Upper Pines are $18 per night. Reservations are advised, but usually there are sites available in winter. Phone toll-free (800) 436-7275 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Walk-in sites at Camp 4 (Sunnyside) are $5 per person, first-come, first-served.
WHERE TO EAT: At Yosemite Lodge, the old cafeteria has been replaced by a new Food Court, with pasta, pizza, deli, grill and entree stations, as well as hot breakfast and a bakery. Items from under $2 to $8.95. The Ahwahnee's baronial dining room is one of the most beautiful in the nation; this year there's a new chef, James Anile. Expect to pay about $35 per person for dinner,
including wine. At night there's a dress code. Go for breakfast, when you can enjoy the view and ambience at cheaper prices.
WINTER EVENTS: Ask YCS (see above) about packages for Vintners' Holidays (through Dec. 13) and Chef's Holidays (Jan. 9-Feb. 7). Bracebridge Dinner is performed on seven nights over the Christmas holidays. Usually you'll need Bracebridge reservations a year in advance, but it's sometimes possible to grab last-minute cancellations.
WHAT TO DO: The ice rink at Curry Village is open daily through March, with rental skates and a warming hut. Free buses run daily from the valley hotels up to Badger Pass, the ski area on the Glacier Point Road. Also at Badger Pass is a Nordic ski lesson-and-rental concession operated by the Yosemite Mountaineering School, which offers guided overnight ski-tours to a backcountry lodge at Glacier Point. A Nordic track is laid every day along the 10-mile route from Badger Pass to Glacier Point, and there are marked ski trails to Dewey Point and Ostrander Hut. Crane Flat and the Mariposa Grove also have marked ski trails. At Badger Pass, rangers lead snowshoe walks daily,
and on full-moon Ultrathin Series nights. Yosemite Concessions also offers a $20 "passport" which includes one lift ticket at Badger Pass, ice-skating and a bus tour of the valley floor; it must be purchased when you reserve your room.
LITERARY CONFERENCE: Dates are Feb. 24-28, 2002. Among the many presenters are Gary Snyder, Francisco Alarcon, Al Young and Malcolm Margolin. Contact Yosemite Association. P.O. Box 230; El Portal, CA 95318; call (209) 379-2646 or visit www.yosemite.org. YA also sponsors seminars on winter ecology, photography and snowshoeing.
MORE INFORMATION: For Yosemite road and weather conditions and general information, phone (209) 372-0200. When you enter the park, ask for a copy of the latest free Yosemite Guide, a tabloid full of details about programs and facilities for winter visitors. The official Web site for the national park is www.nps.gov/yose.
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