Yosemite Snow

New Year, new resolutions :-) Here is the latest from us. We went to Yosemite to go snowshoeing, something that we have come to enjoy almost more than snowboarding: no crowds, no rush, no lines, no overpriced food. So we went to Yosemite NP, and took a trip from Badger Pass to Dewey Point. Because it was a semi-holiday weekend (MLK day, bankers, government and teachers had Monday off), it was fairly crowded, so the aforementioned did not quite apply. But we took the "most difficult" route to the viewpoint and the crowd was completely gone :-) It was Sabine's first hike after her accident, but she did great, and we got to the lookout fairly early.



We had lunch and enjoyed the view: we could look into the Valley and saw El Capitan and Half Dome (picture is El Capitan, 3000 ft high and the largest piece of granite on the planet):


Some more pictures from the viewpoint during and after lunch:





We got back after a total of 4 hours and were really tired. After a good night's sleep in a local motel, we decided to drive into the valley the next day and walk around some more. The sun came out most of the time, and it was beautiful as always. The rocks in the Merced river were snow-covered, and the reflection of El Capitan in the river looked great:



We took some pictures with our new little monkey tripod that can be tied on tree branches for example (thanks, Michael and Ewa!):


We walked around and saw (small) Yosemite Falls reflect in the river:


From close by, the lower half of the waterfalls looked like it was spring though:


Half Dome looked as beautiful as ever, and although Sabine keeps telling me that the 285724587248 pictures I already have should be enough, I couldn't resist:


On our way back to the car, we saw a little bobcat hiding a few feet from the sidewalk; the local wildlife clearly enjoys the lack of tourist on winter days: