yosemite, 6 years in the making

in the fall of 2005, i receieved a postcard from yosemite national park signed ‘love, matt.’ we’d been dating for about 8 months and matt was celebrating his graduation on a roadtrip out west with his dad. i was in athens giggling over the, ‘love, matt’ signoff on the postcard while he was hiking and capturing some of the most beautiful images i’ve ever seen. neither of us were photographers at the time but our shared love of beauty and light and space were starting to lead us in that direction. when he returned he showed me the images, explaining how grand everything was and how, one day, he’d take me there.

fast forward 6 years. it’s our four year wedding anniversary and we’ve carved time from our busy fall to really celebrate our anniversary and our life together. yosemite was the natural choice for relaxation, exploration and rejuvenation- exactly the combination we were looking for. we booked a little cabin in the park and spent our sunlight hours hiking to majestic waterfalls, quiet mountain lakes and points with views that quickly put life in perspective. in the evenings we cooked decadent late night dinners and lounged around our little cabin with books and a splash of scotch. can you believe we actually came home? we almost didn’t. ;)

here are just a few of the images matt captured. i’ll do a followup post in a bit with a few of my images when i finish sorting them. i just love how he sees the world:

this is why it’s taking me a while to get through the images- we’ve been scanning in film for days! can’t wait to share a few though…later…

in case you didn’t know this about me, I LOVE SNOW! i was so excited to climb up just to touch it and crunch it with my toes.

this little peninsula was our lunch spot our first full day in the park. we had thick, delicious sandwiches with cured meats and cheese and olive oil and olives and black pepper. heaven in the middle of a long hike. and then we stretched out to rest…and got terribly sunburned.

there was plenty of snow around the lake- our elevation was about 9300 ft! the lake was icy cold, my hands ached just from rinsing them off before lunch. but those of you that know matt know he wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to jump in. crazy man. this next image is quite possibly my favorite image ever ever, even though matt is probably in considerable pain or completely numb. still awesome:

…and this was my spot:

shimmery dust:

let me tell you about this next set of images. i stubbed my toe something fierce and while i tried to pull myself together and start walking again and not lash out at the world, matt decided to take pictures. and then insisted we post them. so yea…here i am in pain! ;)

moving on! ;) half dome, i was too scared to hike it. we got permits and everything. and then, i started youtubing. if you’re at all interested in making the hike do not search youtube for ‘half dome descent.’

instead we hiked up to vernal and then nevada falls, simply beautiful and plenty steep!

you can barely make out the little people at the top of nevada falls in this next image…that’s where we went!

bone-in ribeye, folks:

matt also insisted on posting these early morning pics, wohoo! ;) if you haven’t read the hunger games, stop everything, start NOW! we loved them!

this next image makes my stomach churn just looking at it. we had heard of this unmarked overlook and decided to go look for it. well, found it! but, for someone who has a problem with ‘edges’ this was pretty tough for me. i love hiking and views and exploring…but edges? yikes! still, what a beautiful spot:

one evening we decided to go for a sunset hike up to sentinel dome from glacier point. it’s a little used trail- there’s a shorter, more direct one but it didn’t start from our location so off we went, just us, racing up the mountain as the sun fell lower and lower. just as we reached the top the sun touched the horizon. it was stunning. i’ve never seen anything like it. we enjoyed the lingering daylight and then ran all the way back to our car- banging sticks together since i read that that intimidates bears. i cannot even imagine how ridiculous we looked but we didn’t pass a single person on the trail and we got back to the car, panting, but thankful that the most dangerous thing we ran across was a family of deer and some tricky rocks. a great night!

and the last day we were there we saw these sweet big trees:

soon to follow, yosemite: film edition!