Yosemite School Days & Ski Days
Life in a one-room schoolhouse provided an usual learning experience
The year I turned 12, my father took a seasonal job with the National Park Service to serve as a ranger naturalist in Yosemite Park. The three-month sabbatical from his college position teaching forestry would last the winter, and he invited me to come. I knew it would be an adventure. Until then, I had spent my whole life in a small town on the Southern Oregon Coast. I’d attended only one school, moving up with the same kids year after year. Most of all, I had never seen a true snowy winter. The wet and windy Oregon Coast is a place of great beauty, but from there, a frozen and snowy landscape exists as only a legend. Now, I would experience a new home, a new school and a deep winter all at once. We would leave just after the New Year, taking minimal provisions to a furnished cabin on the outskirts of the park.
During weekdays, my father would don his new flat-brimmed ranger hat and staff the visitor center information desk, while I would attend Yosemite National Park Valley School, a tiny schoolhouse with only 30 students — ages 5 to 13 that winter — that existed for the children of park employees. I had been told that this season I would be the school’s only sixth grader.
I packed a few favorite belongings and my warmest clothes, including my baby blue ski bibs, puffy moon boots, knit hat and mittens that dad had purchased solely for the trip. Beyond what could fit in my suitcase, I had no idea how to prepare for this adventure.
We arrived in the park on a sunny January day. The valley was quiet and peaceful. Yosemite in the winter isn’t like the busy tourist season. People are replaced with piles of snow, roads are a challenge to traverse, and the landscape is austere. The cold was a shock — the dry, sharp chill of snow hung in the air, permeating my clothing. Still, there was no denying the park’s amazing scenery. The forest glowed deep green tinged with white, Yosemite Falls splashed and glinted in the sun, and Half Dome and El Capitan towered far overhead, magnificent and massive granite landmarks.
I was nervous my first day, but I immediately felt at home at Yosemite Valley School. It was quiet and friendly, and being the only sixth grader perfectly suited my introversion. No worries about fitting in with my peers, competing with anyone or sorting out complicated social relationships. The school structure, coupled with seclusion in a stark and stunning natural environment, nurtured community and mentorship. Right away, the older kids took care of me, I took care of the younger kids, and everything felt easy.
There was something I was terribly worried about, however, and it was only a couple of days away. Every Wednesday, the school closed at lunchtime, and the entire student population was bussed to Badger Pass, one the few downhill ski areas located within the boundaries of a national park. For just $5, students were provided with gear and a lift ticket.
This was billed as an incredible opportunity, but I knew less about skiing than I did snow. Badger Pass rose less than 1000 vertical feet and had fewer than a dozen runs, but to me, it might as well have been Mount Everest. Everything about the upcoming day on the hill scared me to death, from what to wear to the possibility of tumbling yard-sale-style down the mountain.
Wednesday inevitably arrived, and I stepped off the bus at Badger Pass, high in rugged mountains so different from the sandy shore, and struggled to get from the rental shop to the hill with two sticks attached to my feet. With encouragement from the others, I inched my way towards the rope tow and was pulled up the bunniest of the bunny slopes. At the top, my skis cut into the snow with a sharp crackle as I jammed my knees together and braced for disaster. Stiff as a board, I slid ever so slowly down the hill, reaching the bottom and letting out a sigh of relief. Was it too early to hit the lodge to buy a cup of cocoa with the extra dollar Dad had tucked in my pocket?
I wish I could say that my school’s ski excursions fanned the embers of a powerful personal passion, and that I went on to enjoy a lifelong love of skiing. That isn’t what happened. But neither did I give up and retire to drink hot chocolate. I persisted, each Wednesday taking on a slightly more challenging hill. I became a competent skier, a skill that came in handy over the following years, even if I never did quite learn to love this sport.
When I moved to a mountain town in my 20s and new friends asked if I wanted to join them skiing, I could say yes. When I visited Sun Valley, Idaho with my future husband, I was able to enjoy the incredible views from the top of Bald Mountain with him, knowing I was perfectly able to ski myself back down.
At the end of my time in Yosemite Valley, when spring came and the pines and cedars of Yosemite dripped melting snow to the fragrant forest floor below, one of the most valuable things I carried back home to Oregon was a new sense of confidence. During those days at Badger Pass, I gained the knowledge that I could push myself well out of my comfort zone, and keep trying and succeed.
That realization has served me well my entire life, whether I’ve been a the sandy shore or in snowy mountains, in a small schoolroom or on a university campus of thousands, or just about anywhere in between.
Originally published in Alaska Beyond | Horizon Edition Magazine
