The weather was actually quite clear Saturday morning--a far cry from the doom-and-gloom forecast of cloud cover and lingering showers.
We drove up to Badger Pass, and after securing our permit and putting on our packs and snowshoes, we were headed up the closed portion of the road towards Summit Meadow.
It had snowed several inches the previous evening, so there was a fresh layer of snow on top of a very firm base. This made for almost ideal conditions; the only downside was that the warm air was causing the trees to drop their fresh snow onto any hikers below them. The trail to Dewey Point was already well-traveled by mid-morning.
We decided to stop for lunch at Dewey Point.
Although the views were occasionally obscured by fog-like conditions, when the clouds lifted they were spectacular.
After more pictures and lunch, we packed and headed west along the Pohono Trail. Shortly after leaving the Dewey Point area, the only "footprints" we saw were a few ski tracks, and even those eventually disappeared.
Crocker Point was completely in the clouds, so we didn't stop long there.
After stopping to fill up on water, we headed towards our destination: Stanford Point. A few sprinkles convinced us to put on our rain gear, but by the time we arrived at our the clouds had lifted again.
We decided to take it easy for the rest of the day and just relax and enjoy the views.
We were greeted to a bit of sunrise color, but all too quickly the sun went behind a layer of gray clouds.
Fortunately despite the lack of direct sunshine the morning wasn't too chilly. Since our "out" day would be almost all downhill, we were in no real rush to pack and leave our campsite.
The snow was nearly perfect for snowshoeing and the trees had dropped most of their wet snow, so we took our time following the Pohono Trail down.
After a quick stop at what was probably near the Original Old Inspiration Point, we headed down towards the current Old Inspiration Point, which may also have been Mount Beatitude. Along the way, we crossed some snowshoe tracks that had wandered off the Pohono Trail towards The Real Old Inspiration Point. The snow was thick and consolidated enough to allow us to make it to current Old Inspiration Point and avoid almost all of the shrubbery.
After taking several obligatory pictures from this overlook, we retraced our tracks to where we had intercepted the other set of tracks, then followed them down to current/new Inspiration Point. As the snow thinned, the trail became littered with branches and other more serious deadfall, an unfortunate result of dead trees and recent "wind events".
We encountered the first hikers we had seen since Dewey Point near Inspiration Point. It is unfortunate that there are no signs announcing that you have arrived there, especially since there isn't any obvious "point", nor any place where the views are particularly better or significant different from those of Tunnel/Discovery View or from any of the several open places along the trail. A few sprinkles started to fall as we hiked the final bit of trail to Tunnel view. As we approached the parking lot, we looked back up at the various points we had been to.
The rain started in earnest as we loaded our gear into the car. Despite the fact that it was the start of spring, winter was not over yet.
We had to return to Badger Pass to pick up our other car. It had been raining at Tunnel View, but snow was starting to fall higher up. We had managed to thread another needle through this season's frequent storms and had enjoyed a wonderful weekend in Yosemite.
