Saturday 5am start from SF Bay Area turned into 7:15am start, but that did get me more needed sleep and some chocolate pecan pancakes for the car. The drive along Hwy140 is beautiful as ever. All kinds of rich purple blossoms on bushes and trees, contrasted with vibrant rusty slate and the usual glowing green of sunlit grasses, and the ever-present river at perfect flow right now to hit in a 2-3 person raft or a really adventurous inner tuber.
We were on a mission for a ski trip, so didn't dally for picture taking in the morning what with the later than anticipated start. We were on the slopes at Badger Pass by about 11:30. Next would be the last day of the season, we had to clear out our locker, so might as well get some turns in. I didn't have high hopes, after we closed out the place last year amidst mud and slush puddles everywhere. But the conditions on this day were surprisingly fun! Ample snow, very soft but not slushy, though a bit slow. But that turned out to be cool because I could just bomb straight down the steepest areas without fearing for my life, the forests were still fun to explore, and it was a good confidence building day for leaping off of edges and little cliffs, and hitting some bigger jumps.
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 Dodging a tree well while exploring the upper forest on skier's left of Eagle run. Credit: NutAgain! |
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 Daughter leading the forest route finding, committed before the hill started, so we had to hoof it a bit. Credit: NutAgain! |
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 I had to focus to hang with her though her steep narrow path selection, and this only time she fell at a rest spot was only time I could take a picture. Credit: NutAgain! |
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 Fun little mogul field skier's left of Badger lift, bigger than they normally have, felt like ocean or river waves as we bobbed and weaved around. Credit: NutAgain! |
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So a fun day of skiing, and then it just felt wrong to drive on out of Yosemite with daylight left, I got nostalgic for the climbing life:
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 Ribbon Falls is going off! Credit: NutAgain! |
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 Glorious. Credit: NutAgain! |
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 More glory. Credit: NutAgain! |
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we paused for an El Cap lieback:
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 Credit: NutAgain! |
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And admired the Cathedrals:
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 Credit: NutAgain! |
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As we headed out 140, I made an impulsive decision to detour up 120 for a few minutes to see who who might be at Reed's Pullout. Sweet! Ran into Linda and Ed and a few new people for me. So I sat catching up with them for a bit, with pauses to scan the cliffs above,remembering old adventures, trying to remember others lost in the mists of time, and dreaming up new ones for the future. It was a nice cap for the day running into old friends, broadening the sense of connection to a place from which I have felt somewhat estranged the last few years of Angelino living.
On the Hwy 140 departure, we hit the stoplight just long enough for me to hop out of the car and catch a close-up of those pretty purple blossoms:
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 Highway 140 Credit: NutAgain! |
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 Credit: NutAgain! |
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Pics are all a bit fuzzy because I shattered the lens on my iPhone6 just about the first day I got it. But it does interesting things with evening light and gives everything a bit of a misty ethereal quality, sort of like my shaky memory! C'est la vie, I had a great day, kids did too.
