We had planned to spend the day hiking up to Shuteye Pass, off of the Mammoth Pool Road. We were hiking in Nature’s backyard and my 70 pound Weimaraner named Sally met a 130 pound Mountain lion up close and personal. She is a very lucky dog and this is her story, along with lessons to be learned.

We headed up the San Joaquin River to check out the water in Stevenson Falls and still had lots of energy so we continued our hike up to Dam Six. One of the stars of this adventure were the early wildflowers, especially those beautiful poppies!

Sally, Raven and a group of us headed up Mammoth Pool Road through 2014’s French Fire to Shuteye Pass where we saw an approaching storm dust the surrounding mountains with snow. We had gorgeous views of clouds, the Minarets, Mammoth to the east and the numerous Domes in the area.

We had another great workout with incredible scenery that included views of Half Dome and other prominent high points, Vernal and Nevada Fall and the icy Merced River. This was our first look at the devastation in Little Yosemite Valley that was left over from the Meadow Fire last year. That was very sad to see.

The Snow Creek Trail is the toughest trail out of the Yosemite Valley. It is steep and I while I was hiking up it, I was sure that the trail had about a million switchbacks, but the guidebooks say that it only has about 100. You just can’t get any better views of snowy Clouds Rest and Half Dome from ...

There is a gorgeous view at the top of Chilnualna Falls (pronounced Chil-noo-al-na), which I call an infinity view. Pools of water appear to drop off suddenly into nowhere. These pools were iced over on this trip and that drop-off view was amazing. But the views got even more amazing farther up, with snowy and icy formations on and along ...

We didn’t need to travel very far to get some exercise, let Sally stretch her legs and see some waterfowl. Bass Lake was only a short drive and we were treated to beautiful morning reflections in the lake that was fringed with ice.

We had brand new snow and now that Badger Pass Ski Area had opened, that meant Glacier Point Road was open and a whole big world of snowshoeing possibilities were calling to me. The first snowshoe of the season was to Dewey Point and it was indescribably beautiful.

Did you know that you can print your own topographic maps from home? It is pretty darn easy and here is how you can do it. Of course you will need a computer, a printer and a healthy internet connection. You will also need Adobe Reader but if you don’t, there is a link at the bottom of the USGS ...

I wanted to go as high up on a mountain that I could before winter took these options away from me, so we headed up to the top of Kaiser Peak where we could take a peek at the high lakes and snow covered peaks around us.