De Anza College Outdoor Club winter Yosemite trip 2011

Late arrivals Friday evening had help from others pitching their tent:

Pitch your tent by yourself when you arrive well after dark and you might discover in the morning that you put the rain fly on upside down:

Saturday morning:

Saturday was spent in general sightseeing, or a hike to at least the base of upper Yosemite Falls or a ranger naturalist guided snow shoe walk.

At different times of the day and night people saw raccoons, a coyote and ravens in the campsites. We also found tracks in the snow, below raven, raccoon and steel belted radials:

Dinner Saturday evening:

Hours after Saturday dinner, a night hike and ice skating, when everyone was tucked into bed, it started raining, heavy at times.

At a little after 4:30 a.m. Sunday the noise of rain ceased on the tent fabric. It had not stopped raining, it had just gotten colder and the rain turned into snow. Huge snowflakes, many bigger than fifty cent pieces, fell on and off all morning.

One woman sleeping in the tent above had never been camping before. Another on the trip had never seen snow fall.

Two group photos the last morning, one group at the campsite and one at the Ahwahnee hotel brunch, and we still didn't get everyone in at least one of the photos:

Trip info starts at: Snow Camp