Enjoy Views of a Snowy Yosemite Valley

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/us/yosemite-winter-california.html

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Early on a Friday morning a couple of weeks back, I caught my first real glimpse of Yosemite Valley.

It was chilly, but not frigid. Silvery clouds blotted out the rising sun, until they were streaked with pale pink and orange. Jenna Schoenefeld, the photographer I was traveling with, and I drove along the Merced River admiring the snow-dusted peaks of El Capitan and Half Dome.

Mist rose from the ground.

It was stunning. And above all, it was empty.

Aside from a handful of scattered tourists, we came across no madding crowds at Tunnel View, no traffic jams on the highway.

I felt conflicted in a way that I do more and more often these days living in California.

Yosemite, like many of the most popular national parks, is struggling with overcrowding in peak season, as the need to protect fragile public lands rises.

[Read more about the lasting effects of the federal government shutdown on Joshua Tree.]

But access to national parks is uneven, to say the least. Legacies of racism have kept Americans of color from fully enjoying one of our nation’s greatest resources.

All that was rattling around the back of my mind, even if at the front of it, I was dumbstruck by tumbling waterfalls and stands of dark, ancient trees in the distance.

I felt almost as if I was witnessing something I shouldn’t.

We hopped out of a gas-fueled car we had driven hundreds of miles, and stood on a man-made road just to look at nature that might have been better off unseen, and therefore untouched, by people.

At the same time, I wanted everyone to see what I saw, to be humbled by the power of an environment where you don’t have cell service, to be mesmerized by the vastness.

In the new year, I hope to keep grappling with these particularly Californian paradoxes. And I hope you’ll join me.

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Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.