Tenaya Lodge

The Four Seasons Paradise

Winter Wonders

Sleigh bells in the snow, a High Sierra mountain lodge with roaring fireplaces, massive windows framing enchanted forest vistas -- Tenaya Lodge knows how to ring in the holidays.

Tenaya Lodge features the largest Christmas Tree displayed in the Yosemite area, a 34-foot White Fir tree that is topped every year from neighboring forests under a program that helps thin groves that are overgrown. The tall Tannenbaum is replaced with a seedling from Tenaya Lodge's 35 acres.

Holiday activities at Tenaya Lodge feature festive Thanksgiving and Christmas day buffets, family portrait sessions in the hotel lobby, morning nature hikes and evening outdoor flashlight hikes, spa services, snowshoe, ice skate and cross country ski rentals. Located at an elevation of 5,288 feet, Tenaya Lodge is virtually assured of a "white Christmas," complemented by holiday sleigh rides, caroling in front of the hotel's majestic stone fireplace, holiday readings and live entertainment, a nightly visit from Santa (until the moment he reports for duty up north) and an expanded Camp Tenaya, the lodge's dedicated program for kids.

California's original ski area, Badger Pass has all the elements for a perfect ski getaway -- the famous Sierra snowpack, an 8,000-foot summit, terrain that is ideal for beginners and families, superb ski school, and many bright blue-sky days to enjoy it all.

Located just inside Yosemite National Park, and minutes from Tenaya Lodge, Badger Pass offers nine groomed runs, miles of cross-country ski trails and a separate area for snowboarding. Tenaya Lodge -- the closest luxury hotel to Badger Pass -- sells lift passes and offers a shuttle to the ski area.

Those who prefer to enjoy the winter wonderland at their own pace can strap on a pair of superlight snowshoes and pad around the resort's 35 acres, go dashing through the snow in a two-horse open sleigh ride, or carve figure 8s at Curry Village's outdoor skating rink in what may be the world's most dramatic setting for ice skating, with Half Dome and Glacier Point in full view.

Of course, there's always a good book enjoyed in front of a cozy fire or a dreamy massage and spa treatment to warm winter's chill.

Tenaya's Endless Spring

Yosemite National Park blossoms each spring with millions of wildflowers as the High Sierra snowpack melts, making Yosemite's falls thunder and quenching the Valley's thirst for color. Hundreds of species of wildflowers blossom in Yosemite's Sierra foothills, riverine canyons, forests and alpine meadows.

Spring is a superlative-filled season to experience the Yosemite region. As famed conservationist and naturalist John Muir wrote of the season:

Now is the birth-time of leaves; the pines are retassled, and the oaks are sprayed with young purple. Spring is fully committed. Ferns are a foot high, willows are letting fly drifts of ripe seeds. Balm of Gilead poplars, after weeks of caution, have launched their buds full of red and leaves of tender glossy yellow. Cherries, honeysuckles, violets, bluets, buttercups, larkspurs, gilias, are full of bloom of leaf and flower. Plant-odor fills the valley in light floating clouds and mists; it covers the ground and trees … The scents and sounds and forms of Yosemite spring-time are as exquisitely compounded as her colors. El Capitan is softened with a most graceful little stream that steals confidingly over his massive brow in a clear fall of more than a thousand feet.

Tenaya Lodge offers a front-row seat on Yosemite's glorious springtime theater of waterfalls, wildflowers and wildlife as the Park wakes from its winter's nap. What's more, the elevation gradient of Tenaya Lodge's surrounding Sierra home reaches from 3,000 feet through 13,000 feet, effectively extending the wonders of the season from March through July and even into August at the higher elevations.

Yosemite's Vibrant Fall

Yosemite's autumn is a feast for the senses. Nature spices the air and sends the sun slanting through forests filled with leaves of striking hues. Cool evenings are scented by crackling cedar and pine logs in the fireplace. The summer crowds have departed, leaving behind clear Sierra vistas and the best weather of the year.

Yosemite National Park is incomparable: meadows turn flaxen, wildlife returns to the valley and the air is crisp and pure. Trees sport their vibrant fall colors, which go aglow with an occasional late-season's dusting of snow. Mountain bikes, horseback rides or your own all-terrain shoes can carry you to the heart of fall's foliage and the wilderness beauty surrounding Tenaya Lodge. Add a box lunch of fresh fruit, sandwich and soda, or go with the Tenaya Deluxe -- grilled chicken, tortellini pasta, fresh baguette with brie and more -- and you have an outing that will be savored today, and for years to come.

Tenaya Lodge's fall packages are favorites of travelers who recognize the High Sierra's autumnal allure. Offering a bounty of added values like Yosemite National Park passes and reduced rates for two-night minimum stays, these attractive packages are typically offered from Labor Day to just before Thanksgiving.

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