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Growing up in Indiana and staring for hours at photos of a snowy Yosemite Valley by Ansel Adams in books my father owned, I always had thought that here in the mountains in winter of course there is snow all the time. I later learned that snow here on the valley floor, which is at a mere 3880 feet or so, is extremely ephemeral. The elevation is just too low for snow to last long unless a real cold storm system blows through. The high elevations are of course often blanketed with snow but down below on the floor of this magical valley, things stay relatively warm. So with great interest I have watched the forecast for the last several years hoping for a storm to line up with when I could escape my day job. And finally, the stars aligned a couple weeks ago March 3rd weekend. I drove through the night on Friday night and was greeted to the most incredible winter wonderland I have ever seen. With two decades in Indiana and change, I had seen a lot of winter snows prior to this too. This is a true bucket list item checked off. On Saturday morning there was between 12 and 18 inches of fresh snow, and then another 4ish arrived Saturday night to refresh.
I used to live in Sonora, near the North West entrance to Yosemite. I have traveled the world and there is still nothing I have seen as magical as Yosemite when a snow storm breaks.
Outstanding and congrats. I've been up there twice under similar conditions and have been counting the hours until I get the opportunity to return. I missed this one (work) and I'm jealous of you. Excellent job!
It was worth all the waiting, weather-checking, and webcam watching, and sleep-deprivation!
Snow on the valley floor is definitely becoming increasingly rare. People looking at certain Ansel Adams images might assume that there's snow on the valley floor all winter long, but it's actually both rare and fleeting now. (Global warming is real?) :-P
Wow thank you all for your comments! I was just in Sequoia National Park over the weekend where there too I experienced a winter wonderland. I'll do another thread of other Yosemite images at some point from this same weekend too, as I had just so many keepers from there. I really gained a new appreciation for this park having finally experienced it in the winter with snow. It's such a magical place.
