The winter of 2011-2012 is one of the driest on record out here in California. A few snowflakes fell in October and perhaps even a bit in November, but through mid-January, it hasn't snowed! The Tioga Road, through Yosemite's Tuolumne Meadows (8600') and over Tioga Pass (9943') was still open on President's Day weekend, when normally it closes in November!!! These unusual conditions opened up a variety of rare opportunities to visit alpine areas in the middle of winter, and in particular, to enjoy the glassy ice that formed to many inches of thickness on alpine lakes and rivers. As many of you know, the lake ice emitted many low frequency whale-like booms, mid-frequency cable twangs (or, laser guns), and high frequency cracking noises each day: those will be the subject of the next blog post. THIS blog post is about the ice and silliness that ensued!!!
The main attraction was Tenaya Lake - here's a gigapan by Kurt!
Well, it wasn't *technically* illegal!
So I went skating!
The ice bubbles were awesome (photo by Kurt)
and by Phil:
And people were having a GREAT time!!!
There were bowling balls:
And dogs towing people:
And chair sailing (I sailed all the way across the lake!)
And hockey games, pogo sticks, large kites, bbqs and tables and chairs, skateboards...
And awesome sunsets and moonrises too:
Photo by Kurt:
Photo by Kelly:
Cool,Val. Looks like lots of fun. Mom
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