Weather is always a favorite topic at the Ahwahnee Hotel.  Everyone plans their day according to the sky or the condition of the air or the elemental effects on the ground or in the air.  Yosemite is an ever changing landscape and weatherscape.  The morning skies can be bristling cracking blue as sharp and pure as a new song put to the wind...by mid morning the high flying snow mists filter in along the upper edges of the towering grey granite cliffs spilling down upon the tall evergreens and soon we have rain drops and or snow drops... the weather climate is a moment to moment mixture of turbulent temperatures, dominated by a coolness or perhaps a coldness depending on the mood of the wilderness environment.

This March we have had golden leaves, snow storms that appeared out of nowhere and looked like they were preparing to build the next glacier and then much to my chagrin have been spirited away a quick melt, leaving old brown pine needles scattered about the lawns and paths and meadows in there helter skelter disarray.  Then the dust came.  The forest floor for all the wet a few hours before quickly became a dry dusty  brown scatting up in polluted billows.

We do have green tips showing on all the trees and we have out first Crocus's leaving out.  Soon the Dogwood trees will be showering us in their full glory of whiteness.  They say the flowers exit the bark before the leaves.  I can hardly wait.

I did find lupines and jonquils in a vase behind the elevators.  Some guest must have found these on a hike or they were part of an Easter bouquet.  Speaking of Easter, I was looking for all the bunnies and Easter Eggs today, but saw neither.  I guess that is because Irish Leprechans know that Easter Bunnies do not lay Easter eggs.

The problem I have with my life is like this photo.  I can never quite figure out how to do things correctly.  I would really love to figure out how to rotate images.  The best I can do is  is enter the image and turn my head sideways.  It is inconvenient, but it gives my neck a  little exercise.

This is the steady gurgle of spring snow melt that flows in continual song across the Ahwahnee property.  I keep a watch out for fallen branches that make their way down or across these streams because they tend to block the water flow.  Another detrius that prevents water flow are the billions of pine needles that fall into the streams.  Beavers ought to use them to build dams.  They are excellent at slowing water flow and diverting regular channels.  They make a game out of prevention pathways, as they lattice in intricate divisions all gurgle and rivelets of water that attempt to pass and make head way down to the rushing Merced River.

This is another sign of spring.  When the youth come out of hiding down in Camp 4 and take to the Bouldering pathways along the Royal Arches.  Our huge boulders are marked and mapped for consistant trial and error attempts at the heights or on the parallel.  You have to be able to hang-on no matter what angle the rock is setting and if you are for real climbing way up...well...do not let go.  Finger, Toe, nor leg cramps are not part of the climbers gig.  This boulderer is teaching a class of novices the techniques of the sport.  To learn how to become a rock climber, usually you can start by bouldering in order to learn proper hand and foot  holds.  However Bouldering in Yosemite is as much of a sport and a fun day spent on the rocks than Rock Climbing the Walls with gear, such as pitons and ropes.  One of the more popular climbs is up the Serenity...and up the Royal Arches by the water falls...during the summer and late Indian summer months we have seen as many as 8 climbers at a time working their way up to the summit of the wall.  I was indeed startled one day by the adventures of a climber who was near the cliff where the rocks had been  falling and on that particular day there was another rock slide or rock fall and it was nearby the climbers were working to the top.  They kept moving on up dauntless.  It is a risky sport and those willing and brave know the dangers, and do it anyway in the same spirit of fearlessness as the Search and Rescue Teams go about their business of collecting stranded climbers off of the cliffs.  The interesting thing is that both sets of adventurers learn the same skills and know the same dangers and when not rescuing, SARS members head out into the wilderness to enjoy it just the same as the day climber or hiker does on his personal quest for adventure.