Yosemite, February 20-21, 2010

Years ago, the Curry Company used to light a bonfire at Glacier Point then shove it off the cliff. This was the famed Yosemite Firefall, which my grandmother saw sometime in the 1940s. The practice scarred the face of the cliff and caused the meadow where people gathered to watch the firefall to be trampled, and was thus discontinued in the 1960s. These days, we have only a natural firefall in late February, when the angle of the setting sun lights up Horsetail Falls in gold, silver, and sometimes red. It is gorgeous. You'll have to search google images: it was overcast the weekend we were there. But we still had a great weekend. Saturday morning walk from Yosemite Falls to El Capitan along the Merced River:


El Capitan hiding in the clouds:

Saturday afternoon, a crowd of photographers at Tunnel View:

Saturday afternoon, snowshoeing at Badger Pass with Noah and Tamar:

We stayed at Camp Curry, in a heated tent cabin. The family in the tent next to us totally lacked inside voices and shouted at great length about insipid and vacuous things. This is a risk you take staying at Camp Curry. The good people at the Delaware North Company must have read my post about Sequoia and Kings Canyon, even though I didn't write it until after we returned: they are starting to win me over with free coffee in the morning and free hot chocolate in the afternoon in the registration building at Camp Curry.

Sunday morning we hiked up the Mist Trail. Noam wanted to hike to the top of Nevada Fall but we got turned back by snow below Clark Point.

As we hiked back down the Mist Trail it started snowing, so we high-tailed it out of the park to avoid getting stuck in chain controls.