Yosemite Gnar



By Miles Clark

I just got back from guiding a client in Yosemite last week. The guy was a super cool 59 year old who was geared up and ready to rip! So we both put our gnar faces on and got ready to charge around and dominate Yosemite for 7 days.

After putting on my 70 pound pack, I started to feel slightly less gnarly. Then, after discovering that the first 4.5 miles of our trip were on a groomed road, I felt a tiny bit less gnarly. Finally, while staying in the super cushy Glacier Point $120/person/night Hut our last night, I felt even a touch less gnarly than before.

But, we did do some solid skiing one day and we saw some very rowdy (yes, some gnar was actually spotted) ski terrain, not to mention some of the best views of our lives. One of the most amazing aspects of the trip was that it was really warm, so the waterfalls of Yosemite Valley were raging. Check out this video of Yosemite Falls.

Yosemite Falls in January 2010 from UnofficialSquaw on Vimeo.

The good terrain that we saw was just outside of the Ostander Ski Hut is Southern Yosemite. The Ostrander is awesome and I think the best part of the whole trip was hanging out with the hut keeper, Howard Weamer. Howard is a 65 year old story-telling addict who has crossed the Sierras in winter numerous times, crossed the Wrangell Mountains in Alaska, done a 28 day 300 mile ski traverse of the Sierras, climbed and skied all kinds of crazy things in Yosemite, and still does this shtuff all the time!

The Ostrander Hut is 9 miles in and only costs $30/night. Check out this photo of only a fraction of the awesome terrain there. Tons of mini golf!



Here is me talking about the trip and just generally being sunburned and blown away by the view.

Half Dome Chat from UnofficialSquaw on Vimeo.

Now watch this video below and try to figure out what you're looking at before it's too obvious.

Yosemite is Unreal! from UnofficialSquaw on Vimeo.