"The mountains are calling and I must go."
- John Muir
It was sunrise on the first day Dan and I woke up in our room in Yosemite National Park. The warm morning light streamed in through our b&b window, creating a little rainbow from the fractures of light. We couldn't contain our excitement to be back in this beautiful place, so we were out of our room and on the road heading to the park in record timing. Our idea behind coming to Yosemite National Park again was to be able to immerse ourselves in the landscape, to enjoy the quiet under the stars, to distract ourselves with landscape photography and just not be working for a minute. And that's exactly what we did.
Each morning we took the same road into the park, and every morning it looked like we were in a completely different landscape. One day it was warm and sunny, the next it was gloomy and cold, one day we woke up and the world was a winter wonderland. We embraced even the small things like our drives to and from destinations. On our first morning we set off on a hike to Mirror Lake again. Having visited this place in the summer it was a strange, nostalgic reminder being here again in winter. Where everything is the same, but all so different at the same time. I remember the ice cracking under our feet as we set off on the hike. Where there were leaves and branches the year before, now was a pile of snow still unmelted. When we got to the end of the hike, it was such a stark difference from the year ago we were there. In the summer, there is a sign pitched into the ground that states "mirror lake" but all you can see around it is tall grass and dirt pathways paved out by people who have gone looking for the lake. In winter this time, everything was glacial blue and magnificent. The water from Mirror Lake actually reached up to the sign they've pitched and was so still it really did look like a perfect mirror reflection of the trees and mountains surrounding the valley.
One afternoon, Dan and I were chasing the sunlight for photos and out of the shrubbery a few meters away from us, two white wolves stealthily jumped out, glanced at us and went about their way. It was terrifying but so wonderful to see these creatures up close. That same afternoon, the sun was still lingering in the sky, but had set already in Yosemite Valley. We decided to head to Yosemite Falls and when we arrived we had the whole place to ourselves without a single other soul around. I remember standing on one of the rocks just following the water crashing from the top to the bottom of the waterfall. Again, in the summer time the waterfall was there but it was such a small stream of water. Now in the winter, the water was powerful and loud.
That night we headed up to Tunnel View to take photos of the stars. We shivered in our coats as we waited for our 30 second exposures to finish, giggling at silly things we were talking about and constantly realising and appreciating where we were.
These are just a few snapshot memories of our time in Yosemite National Park. Below are so many photos I've taken of our time there. I still have more to come too!
all photos edited with my NEW Yosemite Lightroom Preset
