Yosemite in November – Exploring the Valley

Saturday morning we woke up to a clear sunny day.  The fog had cleared for the moment.  Temperatures varied from the high 30s to the low 40s, and as long as you were in the sun it wasn’t too bad.  The sun drops behind the Yosemite walls around 2 PM – before that, it was chilly but walkable.  We took a walk after breakfast, when it became clear that anything in the shade was likely to be frozen:

Those are pieces of ice in what used to be a puddle of water.  It was in the shade.  From the location, and the tire tracks, I’m guessing people rode bicycles through it and broke up the ice into slabs.  We also saw some frost covered leaves, which would not have been so pretty if they were in the sun.

Our weekend at Yosemite was enlivened by the Saturday afternoon wedding, scheduled for the grounds of the Ahwahnee.  Yes, after the sun went behind the walls.  I have a note that it was 39 degrees out, but I didn’t note the time.  I shared a table briefly with (I think) the groom’s mother.  She had been planning to sit and watch the ceremony bundled in her coat, and then learned she was expected to walk down the aisle – without her coat.  We didn’t see the wedding, but we did see the ranks of folding chairs in a field near the hotel, waiting for the guests to come.  And we saw a lot of people walking around the Big Room and the lobby wearing what were obviously “wedding clothes.”  I still don’t understand why you would wear shoes with blinking, colored lights around the soles to a wedding, but then I know I’m a dinosaur.

Since nobody has hunted deer in Yosemite in over 100 years, it wasn’t surprising to see a small herd grazing in the yard outside the Ahwahnee’s entrance lobby.  They just ignored any people walking by.

For the most part the food at the Ahwahnee was very good, but on Saturday we both decided to have “the soup” for lunch – which turned out to be a vegetarian chili.  Jim liked it (he likes hot spice), but it was so hot I could only eat a little of it, the only meal there I didn’t like. 

After lunch we took the guided tour on the history of the Ahwahnee.  Jim knew more of it that I did, but I was startled to learn that Donald Tressider and his wife Mary Curry Tressider actually lived in a private suite on the 6th floor of the Ahwahnee, converted for them in the 1930s from a ballroom; and that Mrs. Curry Tressider continued to live in that suite until she died in 1970!  She was the daughter of the couple who founded Camp Curry, now called Curry Village, in 1919.  Our guide also showed us the original cornerstone of the hotel and explained that the huge logs in the ceilings of the building are actually hollowed out and lined with concrete, and that what looks like wooden siding on the outside of the building is actually concrete slabs painted to look like wood.  Concrete, of course, doesn’t burn.

When we weren’t walking around or touring somewhere, we tended to spend our time sitting in the Big Room, or possibly in the lobby area, watching the fire that was almost always burning there in the big double-faced fireplace.  Our room was very comfortable, but it had no fireplace.  The Big Room is very comfortable unless somebody comes in or out the outside doors, when the cold air follows them in.  I met some interesting people sitting around watching the fire, or sometimes I just read a book, or wrote in my travel diary.  We had a second dinner at the Ahwahnee that night, very good food but fetch it yourself, the Ahwahnee hasn’t restored table service yet, probably to do with the ongoing repairs.