Giant rock faces. Giant trees. Giant waterfalls. Yosemite National Park is saturated with some of nature's greatest creations. We met friends in early March for some "winter" touring in Yosemite when the summer crowds are missing and snow covers vast stretches of the park. Unusually warm weather baked the snow and triggered a quickening spring thaw, making snowshoeing and hiking the best way to travel on alternatively crunchy or slushy snow. We traveled along the rim of Yosemite Valley, on tree-line crests, up waterfall-filled canyons and through groves of Giant Sequoias. Yosemite, as Muir quickly realized, is clearly a special place with a concentration of beauty that has few North American rivals.