"F" is for frozen~Sunday Stills Challenge~071011

A frozen lake and frisky marmots...that's what we found in Yosemite National Park. Actually, the lake is Tioga Lake, which is just outside the eastern entrance to the park. When we were there in mid-June (June 16), this lake was completely frozen and the entrance to the park was still closed due to extremely high snow levels. I'd been watching videos on the Yosemite cam about the snow plows and snow removal equipment at Olmstead Point and hubby and I decided to drive up the Tioga Pass to see if the entrance was open or not. Nope. It didn't open until June 18th...We returned to the Sierra over the July 4 weekend and this lake still had ice on it! A LOT of ice! The road into the park was open, but there was still a lot of snow piled up in some places. The lakes were full, the streams and rivers were running wildly, and the meadows were full of water. I've never seen so much water at Yosemite and we've been there half a dozen times over the last few years. The Sierra had a record snowfall this winter (178% of normal) and there were even flood warnings from all the runoff. I took these photos early one morning and when we pulled into the turnoff, these frisky marmots were playing and completely ignored us! "F" for frozen and frisky ... Sunday Stills Challenge for July 10, 2011. Oh, and marmots are a mammal, a member of the squirrel family. They like to live in rocky places and we noticed other marmot families along the road in Yosemite. These two were very playful and allowed us to get close to them! To visit Sunday Stills, please go to: http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/