Yosemite in Winter

from Mountains of Light

Rising from my sleeping bag, I crawl out of the tent to take a dawn hike around the frosted meadows for an hour or so. The sun peeks over Glacier Point and lights up the bare granite rock of North Dome and the meadow below with a warm yellow glow.

In Cook’s Meadow, acorn woodpeckers hop up the trunks of dead trees, picking out acorns they stored there in the fall. By Sentinel Bridge, three young bucks are hanging out looking for trouble; their snorts come out in white puffs. 

Invocation of Trees

The trees, now naked of leaves, stand proud in the woods behind my house. They hold their strong bodies against the cold and rise up to the sky, rise up with their arms open in thankfulness to Creation for the year that has been, rise up in reflection and praise.

The birch trees twirl in the breeze with open hands like whirling Sufis, reuniting heaven and earth. The pine and fir trees, heavy with snow, bow their heads and scatter their resinous incense on the air. The oak trees feed acorns to the squirrels who have slept in, and protect nuthatches and wrens with their stout branches. 

Zero

Before dawn it’s zero degrees outside.  

Zero, as if there was no temperature outside. Nothing is moving, no animals or birds, not even the wind. I stand motionless in the dark, not wanting to ruffle the stillness that is holding my part of the world.




The frozen sun rises crystalline and pink on the horizon, shifts to a light canary yellow that fades as the sun warms the air to eight degrees. 

Some would say it’s bitter cold. I call it refreshing. Bitter starts at minus 20. I’m from Wisconsin. Yet when I breathe in, it feels like my lungs get prickly.

Hidden in the stiff, unmoving trees, is the unseen longing of leaves tucked deep inside the wood waiting for spring. Beneath the snow, mice, voles and our neighborhood woodchuck sleeps.  

Winter Canticle

Primordial turn of Earth.

Snow.

Solitude with stone.

Light rises,

            travels below the south ridge.

Cold lingers

            on the shadow side of the valley.

Fleeting moments of warmth midday.

Solitude of Trees

In a back issue of The Yosemite Journal, Howard Weamer writes about the Ostrander Hut that is in the area behind Glacier Point. The Hut is ten miles out in the backcountry, at an elevation of 8500 feet, and in winter is accessible only by cross-country skiers. Weamer was its caretaker and host for many years, and writes of the wide-ranging discussions that would go on into the night between people of different backgrounds. He also mentions the need for solitude that was often expressed by his visitors: "those who welcome it are assumed to have attained something special."

This phrase stayed with me as I hiked by myself out to the hut one gorgeous autumn day. The stone hut was locked up when I arrived because it’s a winter destination, but I looked in the windows at the close sleeping quarters, then looked out at the tranquility of the forest, mountains, and the small lake that feeds Bridalveil Creek, and I felt contentment.

Does being comfortable with solitude mean that we have arrived at our goal of attaining solitude? Is there nothing that happens once we arrive? What about self-exploration?

Does solitude lead us into self-awareness, or does self-awareness lead us into solitude?