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Chomi in Yosemite

Posted on January 3, 2008
by Dinesh Dutt


December 23. The winter moon, full and bright as day, is still riding high as Chomi and I set out for Yosemite National Park. Over time, I’ve become accustomed to making a day trip out of a visit to Yosemite National Park. Most visitors have not the time for an extended stay there or are older or not capable or interested in the physical activity of hiking or camping; in Chomi’s case, it was because Shanthala would be alone at home since she couldn’t accompany us. I like to leave by 6 AM for a return around 7 PM. My part time job allows me to make the trip on a weekday which cuts out the crowds in summer. The visit is only of the Yosemite Valley with a possible hike to Mirror Lake, time to wander about and explore the meadows and take lots of pictures. I also take them to Glacier Point in summer but venture only till Tunnel View point in winter. I prefer to go when snow on the ground in winter. Most visitors we’ve taken have not seen snow before in their lives and having Yosemite be the place where they experience snow for the first time intensifies the experience, catapulting it into one of life’s most memorable moments.

I’ve tended to take Rte 120 to the Big Oak Flat Entrance to the valley after initially going via Rte 140. I get to the park entrance in about three and a half hours or at most four, if we stop for a longer breakfast. Like a tour operator, I’ve worked everything out for maximum efficiency. Breakfast is at a Starbucks cafe in Oakdale, lunch is pizza at Curry Village or packed lunch at the picnic benches near Swinging Bridge, coffee just before we start back and a stop at Oakdale again if it’s an older crowd that can’t deal with a non-stop four hour drive. I found that going to Glacier Point (and Tunnel View) first saves time. I don’t usually stop at Bridal Veil Falls unless the folks are waterfall nuts.

In winter, the sun doesn’t rise until 7 or 7:30 in the morning and as we drove over the East Bay towards Livermore, we watched the sun first peek over the horizon, throwing its orange blaze out in a most distracting way. Anjani Thomas is crooning “Every night she comes to me, I cook for her, I pour her tea, She was in her thirties then, Made some money, Lived with men”. The song is perfect. The winter sun also casts a much more beautiful light than its summer sibling. Driving through the Central Valley is typically the most boring part of the drive, you’re either driving through farm lands or through barren, brown hills, all in an insufferable heat. Since the sun rises much later in winter, the gentle glow of sunrise still lights the landscape, rendering it in pastel colors that makes the lights in the farm houses look warm and inviting, the hills take on an attractive golden color and the brown earth look rich and life-giving. I watch the families come out, dressed in their Sunday church dress, heading for the morning mass, some walking quickly to the cars to escape the cold while others shuffle calmly on.

I had little sleep the previous night as I’m a late sleeper and so the coffee at Oakdale is a welcome break. Since I really need my coffee, I’m picky about stopping at any restaurant. Something about American coffee makes it bitter and tasteless in most places, so unlike coffee everywhere else including Canada. So, it has to be Starbucks for me as it is the only coffee I can be sure of in a strange town. The things we do to encourage large corporations and deter small family establishments.

The Starbucks store in Oakdale is like any other Starbucks store. On one of the walls is some writing. “Sip, sigh, stay, be”, it said. We made it nothing more than a pit stop, a place halfway between home and stunning granite. “What does the coffee feel like ?” the writing continued. “‘It feels like home’, he replied”. It didn’t feel like home to me. The store has no toaster to brown the bagels and so we eat some muffin and banana nut bread along with coffee. Since it’s just the two of us, breakfast is a quick affair and we’re out in fifteen.

The drive from Oakdale to Yosemite Park Entrance is beautiful today. The coffee has made me alert and I focus on the road while stealing quick glances at the attractive countryside. The storm the past week had dumped enough snow in Yosemite, I had found out. We were carrying snow chains as was mandated during a winter visit, but I hoped that I wouldn’t be asked to use them. I had made plans with Silvano to use their four wheel drive if chains were required. No chains were required, I was told at the entrance, but it was very slippery and icy and so was asked to go very slow. I do that, not going over 20-24 mph as we drive over a road icy and not entirely snow free.


Once we get past the high point of Rte 120 at about 6200 feet and start descending, the road starts to clear up. There’s hardly anybody on the road. Construction work along the initial part of the drive from Crane Flat has forced a one-lane road with traffic lights to ensure that traffic is moving in a single direction. This and the snow covered pullouts prevent us from stopping by the snow covered Merced river and snapping some pictures. That has to wait till later.


Chomi is like a kid in a candy store. His eyes wide open, a big foolish grin hanging from his face as he looks at his first snow. The snow has hardened and so is easy to walk over. When I brought his parents many years go, it was winter too, but the snow had freshly fallen and was still very powdery. His parents acted like little children, gathering the snow, tossing it in the air, walking in it and wanting to be in it as much as possible, despite the cold and their sensitivity to such temperatures. When we first stopped at the first lookout on Rte 120 from where El Capitan and Half Dome are visible, Chomi can hardly hold himself. He takes some pictures, but seems more interested in just being there, eventually surrendering all photography to me as he enjoys himself.


The first closeup view of El Capitan always ensures an enormous jaw drop and viewing the largest granite face in the world, the reaction is no different this time. It was also the first place to get into the snow, in the snow covered meadows that surround the base of El Cap. I’ve come to Yosemite so many times, but the magic of the place never fails to charm me.


This year, I came first early in spring when the spring melt was quite significant and all the waterfalls were roaring. I even saw Ribbon Falls for the first time in all my visits to the park. I also saw a bear and two cubs for the first time in Yosemite. When I visited with my parents later in the summer, the scenery was a little different again and I got to see a bear even more closely than before. I have come to Yosemite about four times before in winter, but the last time was about three years ago, the memory has waned a bit. I’m charmed all over again, as if it’s the first time. While I snap away, Chomi wanders away and eventually has to be called back with some rather frantic shouting.

We stop by at various places along the way, taking time to walk in the snow and just soak up the atmosphere. I spot a bird, looking cute and cuddly, ducking and walking in the water. After some research on the web, I determine that the bird is the American Dipper and is rather well loved and popular. It’s not hard to see why.



We have an early lunch to beat any crowds that might show up. The pizza at Curry Village is quite decent and we had one with banana peppers and onions. By now, more cars have started trickling in. Afternoons I feel so sleepy that I need another shot of caffeine to make the drive back safe. As I pay for the Frappuccino, the store clerk asks me if I was having it to stay alert on the drive back. I said yes. He then advises me to consume it at least a half hour before we start our drive back. He recounts his story of how he once switched to some other caffienated drink over coffee to stay awake, had fallen asleep at the wheel and wrecked his car though he managed to survive, nary a scratch. William Dement, the father of sleep medicine, talked about the dangers of driving when sleep deprived and says that its more common than DUI. The famous crash of Exxon tanker at Valdez in Alaska a few years ago was also caused by a sleepy captain. Having had difficulty obtaining good coffee along the way till Oakdale, I purchase the Starbucks Frappuccino that is sold in most places today.



We drive back to the entrance leisurely, stopping at every possible point to snap some pictures or admire the scenery. For the first time, I also notice two beautiful pieces of rock, that I later discover as the Cathedral Spires.


I find it hard to ask Chomi to hurry as he lingers, but time is fleeting and I want to be down at the base of the hills, past Groveland and as close to Oakdale as possible before dusk. I don’t like driving in the dark down narrow, winding roads. The snow has melted sufficiently from the roads and the snow clearing machines are also operational, making the drive back much more faster. As we drive back, more cars are heading into the park and Chomi remarks that he is glad to have enjoyed the park with so few people. Fleetwood Mac is singing “I didn’t believe the ways of magic, but I have a feeling its time to try”.

The drive back is uneventful. A full winter moon keeps us company again. We pull into the garage by 6:30 PM or so, to the closing strains of Mark Knopfler’s Boom Like That. Chomi is still wide-eyed.

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To Big Sur With Chomi

Posted on December 31, 2007
by Dinesh Dutt

Chomi and I drove down to Big Sur on the 21st. Big Sur is one of the main stops in the little tourist itinerary that Shanthala and I put together for any friend or family who’s visiting us, San Francisco and Yosemite National Park being the other two. If you’re not a nature lover and would prefer to see architecture and art, then we’d probably be poor companions though we’ve been to a few of the museums in ‘Frisco. We’re both followers of Byron’s line “I love not man the less, but Nature more”. Big Sur is one of the most dramatic confluences of sky, sea and mountains that I’ve seen, a temperate version of the soaring snow covered peaks and behemoth glaciers that we saw in Alaska. For example, Cone Peak in Big Sur is considered the largest coastal mountain in the lower 48 and it rises over 5000 feet just three miles from the ocean. Big Sur is perhaps the only place where the majestic coastal redwoods grow within sight of cacti and animals such as sea otters and cormorants live near arid climate creatures like canyon wrens. While there are a couple of a beautiful mountain and sea combinations in India especially in the place called South Kanara in Karnataka, they’re not as dramatic or as large as Big Sur is.


Big Sur is the Anglicized version of the Spanish name of the place, “El pais grande del sur” (Big Country of the South). The names given by the native Americans who lived there, the Ohlones, the Esselen and Salinan, are probably lost to time. The famous Esalen Institute and Salinas, immortalized by John Steinbeck, are probably the only names of the native Americans still in common use around Big Sur. Everything else reflects the history of the place post annexation by the US following the Mexican-American War in 1848: McWay Falls, Pfeiffer State Park and Julia Pfeiffer Burns Park, Andrew Molera State Park, all names of settlers and pioneers or land grabbers of the wild west, depending on your inclination to label such people.

I haven’t been down to Big Sur in a while, probably last going there when I took my in-laws there back in 2001. The brain is a beautiful creation, a three pound gem, but it is not without its constraints, one of which is its memorization of an experience. To cope with a lifetime of memories, it digitizes an experience by remembering its peaks and troughs and filling in the res of the details on demand. So my recollection of Big Sur were only the highlights, a vague sense of thrill and a collection of wows. The memories were given a refreshing fill-in with this trip. As with any beautiful experience, words only go so far in communicating the experience.

Where Big Sur starts and where it ends is not fixed, but most agree that it starts as the road begins to climb past the picturesque town of Carmel, a town made famous by its residents such as Ansel Adams and Clint Eastwood, and ends as the road starts its descent past the Santa Lucia mountains. In between, it soars as high as Hurricane Point and the intersection of Nacimento highway – which leads down to the most remote of the original California missions – and drops down to almost sea level at many places such as near Point Sur lighthouse. The now rising, now dipping roads and the winding turns can make for some slow driving in many places, which is as well, it gives even the driver a chance to let his dropping jaw bruise his knee. There are numerous turnouts close to the edge that provide a never-ending opportunity to take the scene in and attempt to capture the three-dimensional drama of the place within the confines of a two-dimensional celluloid.


My tours are almost always whirlwinds, constrained by time. This time, it was more related to getting back early enough to rest a while before dashing off to a local concert. I also was unhappy to leave Shanthala alone by herself the whole day. In this late stage of pregnancy, she finds these long drives very discomforting and exhausting. Starting at seven in the morning, I hoped to be back by three in the afternoon or so. My plan included a heavy breakfast so that we could skip lunch and eat something only on return. My plan called for taking highway 17 to highway 1 and then followed highway 1 all the way to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park for a quick hike to see the unusual McWay Falls and then turn around and head back home. I managed to deviate from the plan on this trip.

Highway 17 is a beautiful winding road that goes through the fancy neighborhoods of Saratoga and Los Gatos to remote houses situated off roads branching off the highway without regular highway exits to summit at Patchen Pass before descending into the city of Santa Cruz. Throughout the drive, there is either a bangup view of the Santa Cruz mountains or you’re driving through them next to groves of coastal redwoods and other evergreen trees. I’ve read that most people can recognize more brand name logos than flora and fauna and I’m sadly among them. I had hardly paid attention to the trees and the birds around me when I grew up and not having parents who paid attention to them didn’t help me much. Now I struggle to recognize a few of the common ones. In writing these articles, I research the web for pictures and descriptions of what can be seen on the roads that I passed through and try and remember them for other times.

Highway 17 also happens to be one of the most dangerous highways in the state as it’s filled with commuters in a hurry to get to work or home and taking the curves a little too fast. Wikipedia reveals that the locals call the Northern part of the highway after the Summit “Valley Surprise” as many drivers hit the median on their hurried way to the valley. Chomi enjoyed the ride and was staring out of the window beatifically, like a child in a candy store. The sunlight filtering through the trees provides a magical play of light. I can see myself losing focus on the road with so much to admire around. I take the slow lane and take my time to make it through the highway. It’s only about 27 miles or so.

Highway 1 starting from Santa Cruz is somewhat boring, going through mostly suburbs and farmlands with nary a glimpse of the sea. You can feelits presence, but just can’t see it, probably till you get close to Moss Landing and go overElkhorn Slough and see the harbor with all the sailing boats anchored, awaiting their captains to journey to the sea. It’s not till you near Monterey that the sea starts playing hide and seek with you till you pass Carmel. Then, it’s right there, on one side all the time, beckoning you to stop at every possible turnout and gape in wonder at the dazzling spread that nature has laid out.


The road starts climbing and the beauty unfolds starting from the turn at Tickle Pink Inn. The weather in Big Sur is almost an invariant, the place presenting a magical charm in any weather. When I first went there, on a Memorial Day many years ago, the fog had yet to lift its head from the mountains and the place had a fairy tale land feel to it. When I went with my parents in 2001, the weather was bright and sunny and we tripped the light fantastic. The weather was again perfect when I ran the Big Sur Marathon in 2004, an exhilirating experience and a memorable one as I finished the marathon exceeding my expectations. On this trip, it was mostly azure skies except for some clouds in the initial part of the day.

Big Sur has been kept remarkably undeveloped thanks to the untiring efforts of the residents there. Robinson Jeffers, an American poet who popularized Big Sur in his poems and attracted the likes of Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac and Hunter Thompson, captures this attitude in his poem Carmel Point:

The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of surburban houses-
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

Thanks to their efforts, Big Sur is still largely devoid of human constructions despoiling the gorgeous views.

This was my first time in Big Sur in winter. Ice plants, imported from South Africa to stabilize soil along railroad tracks and coastal roads, dot the open hillside. They’re an invasive plant, but they sure look beautiful.



Bixby Creek bridge, a spectacular bridge over a deep gorge, along with its twin Rocky Creek bridge, is one of the highlights of the drive. It is one of the most photographed bridges in the world.


The green in the hills was offset every so often by the whites of pampas grass. As we approached Hurricane Point, the culmination of a two mile climb in the Big Sur Marathon, the dramatic Point Sur lighthouse makes its appearance. I’ve never managed to come at a time when I could capture this scene effectively as the sun is always behind the lighthouse. It sits atop a volcanic rock and is still an active lighthouse. We just enjoyed the view from the turnoff. As the road approaches Andrew Molera State Park, taller trees including coastal redwoods become visible. The yellows, the shades of blue and green were eye catching. There was a pullout from where we managed to capture the winter colors.


The drive continued to provide its share of oohs and ahhs till we got to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. We disembarked for the short hike to see an instance of a remarkable type of waterfalls. Called tidefalls, these are waterfalls that fall directly into the ocean and McWay Falls is a brilliant example of such a fall. Falling from a rocky bluff into a iridiscently turquoise ocean. The setting is so idyllic, I find it easy to spend a really long time here watching the play of light on the waters. Unfortunately for us, the sun was positioned at the right spot in the horizon to spoil any possible picture of the scene and so you’ll have to take my word for it or look at some of the innumerable pictures available on the web. We also hiked to the primitive campground near the falls providing more spectacular views of the ocean.


We still had time and so I decided to take Chomi to the famous 17 mile drive just outside Monterey, which houses the world famous golf course, Pebble Beach. In the old days when Big Sur was just a name, we used to bring visitors to 17 mile drive to admire the spectacular coastal scenery. It is a private road and there is a charge to drive through it. The last time I was there, I was less enamored by its beauty, especially after seeing Big Sur. But time had erased any bad memories and I thought that the drive would be beautiful, though not as beautiful as Big Sur. It was largely a miscalculation. It is overhyped and though there I got a few beautiful snapshots of wildlife – such as that of a hawk below – and scenes of the restless sea, we felt that it was largely a waste of money.


We returned around 5 PM. Chomi said that he couldn’t remember when he last had enjoyed a day so much. It was only going to get more exciting. Next drive up was Yosemite which we tackled two days later.

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