Natural Perspectives:

No matter where you live, it’s nice to experience a different environment once in a while. Northerners and inlanders love to visit our beaches. But one of our family traditions is to get away from the beach each winter for a few days of playing in the snow.

Most years, Vic and I go to Yosemite National Park to get our fix. We’ve stayed at Curry Village, the Ahwahnee Hotel and the Wawona Hotel inside the park. But our favorite place by far is Tenaya Lodge, a resort just outside the park entrance.

We returned recently from our sixth consecutive winter vacation there. We especially enjoy Tenaya Lodge because it has a strong environmental ethic that is reflected in everything from energy-efficient lightbulbs to heat-conserving drapes to low-flow shower heads and toilets. Tenaya is a resort that environmentalists can feel good about visiting.

This year, we went with our son Scott, his wife, Nicole, and our three grandbabies. The twins, Allison and Lauren, turned 4 and Megan turned 2 shortly after we got home. We packed a lot of fun and good food into four days and three nights up there.

In winter, we check the weather carefully when planning our trips. Our first full day at Tenaya, the forecast called for light rain in the afternoon, turning to snow all the next day. We decided to use the first day for our drive into the park, because we’d need chains for sure the next day. Playing in it and driving in it are two different things.

Winter rain didn’t surprise us. With global climate change, a lot of the winter precipitation falling on the Sierras now comes in the form of rain rather than snow. The first winter survey this year of the Sierra snowpack showed that it is only 75% of normal.

We pay attention to such things because that snowpack provides a large portion of our drinking water in Huntington Beach. With Oroville Reservoir in the State Water Project at less than half capacity, we are hoping that Sierra snowfall will catch up to normal by the end of March.

As we drove through the park, a light mist played tag with us. While the dreary gray sky didn’t do much for our photographic compositions, we enjoyed the sight of El Capitan towering above snowy meadows, its rugged granite face reflected in the inky black Merced River.

True to the forecast, the rain changed to snow overnight. Tenaya’s grounds had turned into a sparkling winter wonderland. I got up early to capture the sun playing peekaboo with the clouds, backlighting branches that were weighted down with snow. The valets were busy putting chains on the tires for guests leaving that day. I was glad that we weren’t going anywhere.

After a leisurely breakfast, Vic and I read by the big fireplace in the lobby while Nicole took the twins swimming in the big indoor pool. In the afternoon, we signed up for gingerbread-house decorating lessons. The plan was for Nicole and me to each decorate a house with one of the twins while Vic and Scott watched Megan.

Gingerbread-house decorating is a race against the clock to finish in two hours. A long table held bowl after bowl filled with colorful candies, crackers, pretzels and breadsticks. I grabbed a few cups of candies and began. The twins, who don’t normally get candy, were enthralled.

I noticed that more chocolate bars were going into the twins’ mouths than onto the roof of the house. As soon as the layer of chocolate bars was applied to the roof, I put dollop after dollop of royal icing on the chocolate. Allison stuck a red-and-white peppermint onto each dollop.

It was all I could do to keep her from licking each one before she stuck it on. Just to keep her busy, I squirted a bit of icing on her finger. Putting icing on one finger degenerated into me putting a strip of icing across her entire hand. Naturally, Lauren wanted some too, and soon I was putting more icing on their hands than on the house.

Finally, Nicole told them no more eating candy or icing. That pretty much killed their interest in decorating gingerbread houses. Even the complimentary cocoa held no thrill for them. They dived under the table, hidden from our view by the white tablecloth. Scott reported that they were licking icing off each other’s faces under the table.

But as an environmentalist (and resident wet blanket), Vic disapproved of so much candy being “wasted.” I say waste is a relative term, a small indulgence in this family activity that brings parents and children together. Our gingerbread houses will go to the Orange County Conservation Corps this week, where corps members will enjoy breaking up the houses and eating them.

After a nap, the twins had an evening of crafts with Santa and his elves. The rest of us enjoyed dinner in the new Sierra Restaurant at Tenaya. The exotic dishes were hand-crafted by chef Frederick Clabaugh, who came to talk to us at the table. From beautiful and amazing black truffle-crusted lobster bisques to a Caesar salad prepared at the table to our entrees, this was a meal to savor slowly.

The restaurant warms an environmentalist’s heart. All seafood is chosen from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s seafood watch list to ensure that it comes from sustainable fisheries. Beef is raised naturally and humanely in California on the Brandt family farm. And as much as possible, vegetables are organic and locally grown. The dishes also tasted great. We lingered for three hours over this fabulous meal.

I signed us up for a sleigh ride on our last morning at Tenaya. A team of Belgian draft horses pulled the jingling sleigh through newly fallen snow down a trail through the forest. Megan sat on my lap up front with the driver. She kicked her feet ecstatically and said “Again!” whenever the horses stopped.

At the stable, we paused for hot cider before the brisk and bouncy sleigh ride back to the lodge.

What a fabulous close to a fairy-tale getaway. You can see more photos on my blog at greenlifeinsocal. wordpress.com.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].