Avoid the crowds and enjoy the beauty of this national park with a visit in winter.
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press
Published February 22, 2004
[Times photo: Scott Keeler]
A meadow in the Yosemite Valley, which will be filled with wildflowers come spring, shows a light dusting of snow in late December 2003. Half Dome is visible at the top center.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - Snow brings stillness to the Yosemite backcountry.
It's a solitude not easily found during the tourist high season, summer, when about 600,000 visitors a month descend on Yosemite's 1,200 square miles of protected wilderness in the central Sierra Nevada.
Winter attracts about 100,000 a month, mostly to Yosemite Valley for views of waterfalls, the great granite monolith El Capitan and the towering Half Dome.
Many hikers hang up their gear at the first snow, which can sock Yosemite National Park's backcountry with 8 feet. Park roads close intermittently, and most marked summer trails disappear beneath huge drifts.
It is a time when the park is more serene, even surreal, especially at night, when a bright moon seemingly can ignite the snowy landscape with a white glow.
For the most part, backcountry access above 5,000 feet is limited to cross-country skiers and snowshoers. In many places, a hiker wearing just boots would sink into the snow up to the knees, making even a simple half-mile walk in the woods nearly impossible.
We strapped on our snowshoes at Crane Flat, where the plowing of Tioga Road ends. The road provides vehicle access across the park's high country in the summer, but it typically is closed to auto traffic because of avalanche danger from mid November to mid May.
It has been closed as early as October due to severe weather, and kept closed as late as August.
A 3.5-mile snowshoe trek up Tioga Road, atop several feet of snow, took about three hours. The snow, as much as a foot deep of powder, seemed to swallow our snowshoes.
The route led through forests of red fir, lodgepole pines and the occasional Jeffrey pine, and it brought us to Gin Flat, a subalpine meadow at about 7,000 feet.
We covered about 1,000 feet of elevation gain. From the flat, the view was of snow-tipped Mount Clark, about 20 miles to the southeast, rising 11,522 feet.
The trail is considered difficult, but our party, two men and two women ages 26 to 45 and ranging from novices to experienced hikers, tackled it with just a little sweat.
Cross-country skiing lets you move probably 10 times faster than snowshoes on flat ground or on a decline, but it requires constant effort to climb.
With snowshoes strapped to the feet like giant metal-clawed spatulas, a hiker can venture up steep grades and rocky terrain that would truly challenge a cross-country skier.
Snowshoeing is simple, for the most part. It's just like hiking, depending on the conditions, although deep, powdery snow can make for a grueling trudge.
Bigger snowshoes allow a hiker to float better on the snowy surface, but they can also be more cumbersome to maneuver than smaller models.
At camp, sunset lit up the sky with a pinkish hue cast against the dark mountains in the distance. At night, Venus rose in the western sky as a giant glowing ball dominating the darkness. It was followed by the tiny red speck of Mars, above.
By 8 p.m., our camp had become a planetarium, the sky illuminated with millions of tiny stars bunched together in constellations, only a few of which we could name.
Snow camping beckons a different breed of outdoor enthusiast. On this mild winter night, the temperature dropped into the low 20s, and a brisk wind howled through the treetops. A simple plastic tarp laid between the tent and snowy ground kept things dry.
By 11 p.m., the starry skyscape had given way to the rising moon, which was bright enough to read by.
A few more days in the mountains would have been ideal, but this was a two-day trip. Our 3-mile hike back down to the trailhead was much less strenuous, and it was finished in about two hours.
On our way down, hawks circled in the sky. Their prey can be sparse this time of year, but park ranger Deb Schweizer said another world of life exists in what's called the subnivean space, which forms between the ground and the underside of the snowpack. That's where gophers and moles subside on plant roots and seeds.
"It's brilliant from a survival standpoint because you have the snow as a level of protection from predators," Schweizer said. "But predators have also evolved to take advantage of the situation."
Birds of prey including the great gray owl, which can be as tall as 3 feet, can dive down through thick snowpack to snag their prey. So can coyotes, Schweizer said.
"Lots of people talk about it being winter and it being dead, but there's a lot that lives out there this time of year," Schweizer said.
Some of the park's estimated 350 to 500 black bears can be seen this time of year tramping through the snow, and mountain lions, too. For better or worse, we saw neither.
If you go
Yosemite National Park is open year-round, but some trails are closed during winter. Tioga Road, across the park's vehicle-accessible high country, closes with the first snowstorm and opens when avalanche danger no longer exists.
For driving directions, weather reports, tours, shuttle bus access information, where to stay and other planning advice, go to www.nps.gov/yose on the Internet or call 209 372-0200. The Yosemite Association www.yosemite.org (209) 379-2646 in El Portal, Calif., offers tours and can also provide advice for planning a trip.
GETTING THERE: For driving directions through an Internet mapping service, use the park's ZIP code, 95389. The nearest airports include Fresno, San Francisco and Sacramento in California and Reno, Nev.
Visitors driving in the winter may be required to carry chains in case roads become icy. Check with the park in advance.
WINTER ACTIVITIES: Snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, ice-skating and wildlife viewing. Badger Pass Ski Area www.yosemiterentals.com/badger.htm (209 372-8430) is for downhill skiing, snowboarding and snow tubing. Cross-country skis and snowshoes can be rented.
An ice skating rink is at Curry Village in the valley.
