spring! and winter...

Happy first day of Spring! Winter has arrived!

Not a juxtaposition, here in Northern California the weather has been a bit wacky, riding in tshirts most of January. Well, it caught up with us, and rained for a week. And the weather still looked weird, and Major is pretty well conditioned, so we both got a break from riding. He got to stand around, munch hay and eat carrots.

And I went hiking. Which turned into snowshoeing. This is why the back of my car looks like a sports store exploded in it, with sandals, shoes, boots and snowshoes.

My SO and I headed to Yosemite in the rain, which cleared in time for an afternoon hike. When we woke up there was 6 inches of snow, which continued to come down much of the day. And overnight another (at least) 6 inches. We had many trails to ourselves, Yosemite in winter is great, almost no people. In summer they get 10,000+ cars a day, I couldn't handle that!

path hardly traveled

Vernal Falls through falling snow

just a tree, or an Ent?

I imagine the settlers coming across this, and I've heard they wrote home of this great valley and no one believed them. The Native Americans weren't very happy when it was "discovered," they'd been here centuries! We saw some grinding rocks, followed waterfalls and streams, and the quiet valley would have been so awesome on horseback. I tried to be patient and enjoy the view, though my impatient tendencies did creep through sometimes. This was a good place and a good time to just breathe. And take some photos.

Half Dome

Mirror Lake

just like the horses, these ravens tried to convince us they were starving

Maybe one day Major and I could attempt some back-country trails here. Until then, I'm happy with our own backyard, which is pretty great too.