Mirror Lake

A week after we returned from Michigan, we embarked on one of the few day hikes in Yosemite accessible during the winter. It was sunny, lovely weather for a stroll around Mirror Lake, and it wasn't occupied by many people.

Of course, it was chilly nonetheless! The snow plowed up in the parking space next to us looked freezer-burnt, with thick chunky crystals.

We ate a packed lunch in the car before finding the trailhead. The too-tame crows herded around us when they saw us arrive in the lot, and this one kept jumping on the car hoping to get our attention. You're not supposed to feed any animals, including the birds, but as we saw a man & his son throwing bread at them, it is not always a respected rule. The birds' behavior demonstrated that particular man was clearly not the first to do so either.

I like that this sign didn't just warn us this was a mountain lion area, but gave us instructions for avoiding or dealing with any confrontations. It didn't sound like we were all that endangered, in any case though.

We climbed on this boulder from land, but it mostly sits in the "lake" so we could peer overhead into the waters. It's actually a creek that was dammed up by a rockslide. Nature is correcting itself though, and it's slowly rerouting, meaning the lake will eventually become Mirror Meadow.

Half Dome overlooks the lake, offering a different, closer view of the rock formation. The reason it is called "Mirror" Lake is because it reflects this popular backdrop.

For a while, the park workers combed the bottom of the lake to slow it's return to meadow, preserving the famous reflection. However, they have discontinued this in favor of resuming the natural process.

Just past the lake the trail contained a warning that the trail was closed a mile ahead due to a rockslide that occurred in 2009. We had not expected that since our hiking guidebook didn't mention it, but then again, it was written in 2005. This increased our walk a bit since the hike was supposed to be a 4.2 mile loop from & back to the trailhead, but we decided to go as far as we could (which was past the halfway point) and turn back.

Observe a few sites along our path:
(Remember you can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.)

Lichen lines a lot of trees with a pretty green fuzz. I say "pretty" because it looks so bright against the reddish color of the trees, and the texture is like loofah, not like squishy moss.

Lightning strike?

A long stretch of snake grass along the trail-side.

Peeking at Patrick through the trees as he crosses a charming bridge, with pretty scenery to gaze at on either side.

Warning signs asked us to please not try to cross the rockslide area for our own safety. I had wondered prior to arriving to this spot whether we'd see any evidence of rockfall, or if the trail would stop you far enough away for extra precaution. I'm guessing this is indeed the outskirts of the zone, since you'll notice the sign in the middle and the fence have been crushed by fallen trees!
On our way to our hike, we just missed the shuttle bus that would take us to the trailhead, so we walked the mile or two extra. On our way back, we took the bus, but we got off too early and ended up walking most of the way back! Haha :) At first we were annoyed since we were tired, sore (hadn't gone on a hike in a while), and wanted to be back by 5pm. But we were rewarded on our way with a mystic view of Upper Yosemite Fall as fog settled in around a snowman occupying a portion of the valley floor.

An unexpected delight on our way from the bathrooms to the car. Sunset's crimson beams hitting Half Dome. Below is slightly closer up:

Everytime we're there, it looks a little different, but always magnificent!

Home for the Holidays

Lucky for us, the university is closed the week of Christmas, and Patrick's job is flexible enough he could take the whole week off prior too, since 1) that was the cheapest flight option & 2) we were excited to spend nearly 2 weeks in Michigan!

Our flight got us into Grand Rapids at 11:00pm on December 20, and our connector was in Dallas/Fort Worth. It's a bit more scenic of a route than I've seen by air yet, especially in the evening. The moon shone over a lake behind the lit up city, but it was difficult to capture in a photo, so you'll just have to settle for the moon. :)

We had to leave the next morning for Okemos since Patrick had a doctor's appointment, so we stayed for a couple days, helping decorate his parents' tree, visiting with his family, and hanging out with the Layman/Hensley clan.

We had a pizza party with the Laymans/Hensleys, with gingerbread decorating entertainment to follow. Patrick and I are getting pretty good, and creative too. The gumball corners are stuck with chewed gum to the base. hehe :) We brought this home to my family, but instead of serving as a nice holiday centerpiece, it turned out to be a torture device. My sisters in particular desperately wanted to eat it but I told them they had to wait until after Christmas!

Christmas eve & Christmas morning we were in GR again, visited my best friend and met her youngest baby born in September, and enjoyed a few lovely family meals on the Christmas china. Normally we go to my dad's family party on the 24th, but he had to work the nights of the 24th and 25th, so instead we attended the candlelight church service, which I really enjoyed (had the best Christmas sermon I've heard yet). Our dog Shay had been very, very sick in the month before we arrived, but thankfully she received the right treatment in time for the holidays. She's like a new dog now, and as always, is soooo happy to have the whole family together. :)

Every year we seem to be more spoiled- my parents got us a TV! Heaven knows ours was needing replacing, but we surely didn't expect such a gift. And we seemed to get a million other gifts between the two of our families (we traveled to Okemos again that afternoon), including original artwork by mom, housewares, the ever useful $, games, and a new suitcase which turned out to be very helpful carting stuff home. :)


Unfortunately, Patrick's sister Sally didn't arrive until the 27th, since her flight was pushed back nearly a week from the Heathrow airport weather delays. We changed our plans a bit so we could see her, to a pretty consistent "2 days in GR, 2 days in Okemos, repeat" schedule. Despite a last minute invite, a handful of our GVSU pals were able to meet up with us for a cozy breakfast at Panera on New Years Eve, and we caught up with Patrick's former adviser and his wife over a lunch at Founders.

That night we (along with my mom, Britt, and Aunt Cheri) visited my Grandma at the rehab section of the nursing home (where she is recieving post-surgical physical therapy), had a jewelry-making party (Patrick pardoned himself for a bit to check on the Red Wings game), and played a couple rounds of Scrabble Slam. The visit was short since we needed to pack for our early morning flight.

We stayed up until 2:40 in the morning, but aside of a 10-minute break to watch the ball drop and yell "Happy New Year!", our late night was spent purely on making all our presents fit in our bags without breaking or going over the weight requirement. The alarm clock got us up at 4 in the morning, so this picture (taken at 4:30 just before we left) is of some sleepyheads!

We didn't expect the airport to be as busy as it was so we were very stressed. One of our checked bags hit 50lbs and dropped to 49 a second later, so we were right on verge of having to pull something out/repack. The line to the security gate was long, and I was pulled aside to have my backpack searched by hand after the scan couldn't read an oddly shaped item. When Patrick heard "final boarding" for our flight on the intercom, he ran ahead to the gate and the woman said I had four minutes to get there. I arrived just a couple minutes later- whew!

We dozed part of the flight, got some breakfast tacos & French toast in DFW, and enjoyed a beautiful view of the Sierra Nevada mountains on our way to Fresno. We were originally pleased we'd be back during the afternoon, but it ended up taking all our willpower to stay awake until 8:00pm! Our trip tuckered us out, but it was well worth being home with everybody at Christmas. :)

Pre-Christmas Festivities

We've been busy lately (same as everyone else, I'm sure) so we're trying to play catch-up on the blog to cover pre-Christmas, Christmas, and our recent events in the next couple of blog posts...

We decided to make a gingerbread house again this year (we skipped last year).  It was fun, but seemed more like work this year than in the past.  This is me assembling the walls of the house.

Atalie making the final decorating touches to the house.

 Backside of the house.

We invited some of my co-workers over for a house-warming/make-your-own-pizza party and played Pictionary-- it was a blast!

This is for Jackie E...  This one invaded our house and was crawling on the carpet- ew!

After all this fun, we headed to Michigan for Christmas with our families!

Winter Work in the Mountains

Now that the snow is falling, there are some perks added to working in the mountains...

Snowmobiles ready to be off-loaded from the trailer.

The snowmobile instructors' snowmobile stuck in 3' of snow (on purpose).  This was so that we could learn some of the "tricks" to getting it unstuck, which usually involved lots of digging.

Me on one of our snowmobiles (Blue Thunder).

A rain/snow gage in the Sierra NF.

 

Mounting a datalogger box for an acoustic depth sensor installed in a culvert.

Feeding cable through conduit mounted on a meteorological station after we installed a temperature/relative humidity sensor.

This is not a perk- in fact it is really annoying...

That's what my job is this winter-- I'll be taking the snowmobiles out to field sites, cleaning snow off of instruments already installed, and hopefully by the end of January we'll have the rest of our sensors installed.

Winter in Yosemite

Patrick & I spent Black Friday showing my dad a bit of Yosemite rather than the Merced mall. You'll recognize some of the scenery we posted of Fall colors, but the change in weather creates a different landscape! Remember to click on the photos to enlarge them, for a better look.

Part of the route to the park, through the Sierra National Forest, includes a traffic light timed to allow only one flow of traffic on a one-lane segment of road. We've concluded this to be due to a fence blocking what must be the original road, now caved in by a hillside slide!

You are required to carry and sometimes install chains while you drive through Yosemite during winter, such as this particular day. We purchased a set that morning in anticipation of it, but it took a moment to figure them out. It's funny how in MI chains are illegal, but required in CA! :)

That's a sheet of ice under Patrick's feet! The chains rumbled something fierce on the roadway when the layer of precipitation was too thin, Patrick bloodied up his finger getting cut, and both he & my father dirtied their coats. What a pain! But it was probably for the best to have them on, since we did get held up later by someone being towed out of a snowbank on the edge of a ravine.

While the men equipped the car, I acted as photographer, snapping a few shots of the pretty scenes surrounding us.
And a close-up, below:


With Doris bundled up for winter, we headed into the valley:

Posing in front of El Capitan. I didn't expect so many people at the park that day, but it was beautiful out. Children and their parents occupied the field on the opposite side of the road, engaged with sleds and snowball fights.


Bridalveil Falls above and Lower Yosemite Falls below.


We're standing on top of a fence buried in snow. I was avoiding a spot where the ground sunk in a foot or so between posts, but my dad fell in partially when he ran to take his place after setting the camera's timer. hehe :)

So majestic! It even looks like it's wearing a halo.

Unfortunately you have to snowshoe several miles if you want to see Mariposa Grove at this time of year. At least Dad was able to see part of a redwood! We'll save the Grove for a future trip.


Nearing the end of the day, when the fog sets in!


Patrick's panoramic of Tunnel View in winter. Notice how the wisps of fog look from this perspective!

I also included a close-up from my cam that shows off the indigo coloring from the setting sun.

Can't wait to see more of the park, and during the remaining seasons too!