YOSEMITE: View to a thrill

Range of light: Josh Helling stands at the edge of Glacier Point while the golden glow of sunset shines on Half Dome after a 10.5 mile cross-country ski trip along Glacier Point Road -- Photo by John Burgess/PD.

More than 10 miles from the trailhead, seven hours removed from a frisky beginning and two changes of sweaty shirts into an exhilarating day, a dozen skiers found gold in Yosemite National Park. The flat gray clouds that shrouded John Muir's famous "Range of Light'' opened ever so briefly and at precisely the right time, transforming the view at Glacier Point from magnificent to magical.

Glacier Point Ski Trip What: Guides from the Yosemite Cross Country Ski School lead groups of five to 20 skiers along 10.5 miles of intermediate, groomed tracks to the Glacier Point Lodge. The trip includes lunch, dinner, breakfast and lunch the second day, and dormitory-style accommodations at the Glacier Point Lodge. Who can go: Experienced skiers 14 and older who can ski with a pack for 21 miles. When: Trips leave on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Most Saturday slots already are booked. Cost: $110 per skier. Two-night trips are available for $150. Information: (209) 372-8444

Fifteen minutes before sunset, the snow-capped peaks of the Clark Range took on a subtle hint of pink. Then Half Dome's white cloak began to glow with a lavender so faint it seemed a pigment of the imagination. And finally, the sun broke through, painting the winter peaks a brilliant gold.

"Come outside! Come outside!'' Phil Scurich shouted to the group warming their feet by an indoor fire. "It's camera time!''

The 21-mile round-trip ski tour to Yosemite's Glacier Point Lodge is a strenuous trip that can be complicated by the Sierra Nevada's sometimes atrocious winter weather. But those who take it spend the night on a promontory that overlooks one of the world's incomparable views.

At 7,214 feet, Glacier Point hangs 3,200 feet above the Yosemite Valley. Directly below, tiny ice skaters can be seen on the rink in Curry Village. To the north, Yosemite Falls tumbles 2,425 feet; to the east, the power of Vernal and Nevada falls has been reduced to a low roar that provides a constant sound track.

And directly ahead, dominating the landscape like a bear standing in camp, is Half Dome. Its granite hulk draws the eye with an almost gravitational pull, forcing repeated glances as if to make sure it is still there, or if it is there that it is real.

Dining vista: Cross country skiers, from left, Sharon Baughn, Phil Scurich, Gary Newman, and Susan Sattler, enjoy lunch at the halfway mark of their Yosemite trip to Glacier Point with a panoramic view of the Clark Range -- Photo by John Burgess/PD.

The view with its white winter frosting, even under storm clouds, is well worth the effort of getting to it. But two weekends ago, when it made its transformation from gray to vibrant gold, it turned exhausted skiers into giggling, gushing gawkers.

"Ooh, look at that,'' squealed Carol Madson as she emerged from the lodge. "Oh, yeah!'' hollered her husband, Carl.

"Who would have thought that this would happen?'' said Scurich, who minutes before had been lamenting the overcast. "It's a gift.''

One million people a year come to Glacier Point to see this view, 99.8 percent of them in cars and buses that make the trip from the valley floor in about an hour. The rest come in the winter, when snow closes Glacier Point Road and turns the drive from Badger Pass Ski Area to the point into a 10.5-mile cross-country ski trail.

Yosemite Cross Country Ski School offers a variety of tours and lessons during the winter from its base at Badger Pass, none more popular than the overnight tour to Glacier Point. Weekend tours already are booked solid for this winter, but vacancies can be found on weekday tours -- leaving on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Josh Helling, a 28-year-old East Bay native, has been guiding ski tourists to the point at least once a week for the past eight winters.

"I still enjoy it,'' he said. "It's fun to show it to people.''

Helling said he has guided neophytes and experts, kids and senior citizens, Yosemite locals and tourists from around the world. They come for the skiing, they come to experience Yosemite in winter, they come for family holidays. But mostly, he said, "they come for the view.''

"We get a ton of photographers. They're looking for that golden light.''

Helling and Kaylea White, a first-year guide, gathered a group of 12 skiers on a mild Friday morning at Badger Pass. A week of storms had broken, leaving a deep mantle of snow under a royal blue sky. But wispy, fast-moving clouds warned of weather on the way.

Lunches were passed out and packed, equipment was checked and skiers listened to warnings about sunburn and snow blindness, then the group set out from the trailhead. A short downhill start was followed by a long uphill grade, and soon jackets were shed and gloves were stowed in packs.

Glacier Point Road is a popular cross-country trail, crowded at the beginning but soon thinning out as skiers branch off on several side routes. By the time the group stopped for lunch at the 5.5-mile mark, the only other skiers we encountered were going the opposite direction.

Breathing hard and sweating freely, we stopped at a spot where the pine forests lining the road open up for a panoramic view of the Clark Range, a series of snow-capped 11,000-foot peaks that presented a postcard backdrop for our lunch. Sandwiches and fruit disappeared quickly, several skiers tended to budding blisters, and the group set off again.

White, who is spending a year in Yosemite before heading off to graduate school to study resource management, stayed at the rear of the pack to shepherd stragglers. The group spread out, and at times there was not another skier in sight, the only sound the rhythmic and mesmerizing swish-swish of skis on snow.

The road rolls along forested ridges, alternating long uphills with too-short downhills, and finally drops through a series of switchbacks to Glacier Point.

We kicked off our skis and stepped into the lodge, where Helling had a fire roaring in the wood stove and water boiling for hot chocolate or cider. The welcome turned Dawn Neisser, a 40-year-old from Woodside, into a giddy teen-ager.

Scenic route: Carl and Carol Madson of Mountain View ski along Glacier Point -- Photo by John Burgess/PD.

"This is so cool,'' she giggled, jumping up and down among a fortress of bunk beds. "I love it!''

The lodge, built two years ago as part of a $3.2 million restoration project at Glacier Point, in summer is a gift shop and snack bar. Come winter, though, it becomes back-country luxury in timber and granite. Sofas are arranged around the stove. Candles in wine bottles stand on tables covered with red-and-white checkered tablecloths. Indoor composting toilets replace the outhouse-on-stilts that used to require a 100-yard hike in the middle of the night.

There were still several hours of daylight left, so most of us headed outside to enjoy the view. Or views. One point overlooks the southeast: Mount Starr King, Red Peak, Nevada Falls. Another looks due east: Mount Lyell, Echo Peaks, Tenaya Canyon. And one is to the north: Yosemite Falls, Mount Hoffman, the Ahwahnee Hotel way down below.

And looming over everything is Half Dome.

Some skiers opted to sit inside and read, others tromped around in snowshoes left at the lodge, others grabbed their skis and played in the deep powder.

Until sunset, when the glow of gold brought everyone to a halt.

After the golden show, Helling and White served a dinner of pasta, salad and bread, complemented by wine and topped off with brownies and carrot cake for dessert. Candles were lit and party hats donned for Carl Madson, who celebrated his 40th birthday. Conversation and laughter bounced off the polished timbers and stone floors, someone plucked at an old guitar left in a corner.

The first tired skier crawled into her sleeping bag before 8 p.m. and by 9 almost all of the rest followed, leaving the lodge dark and quiet. Outside, clouds scudded across the sky, the wind in the trees joined the noise of the falls below.

Morning dawned with wet snow and clouds so low that the view disappeared into a world of gray. We quickly ate hot or cold cereal, bagels and muffins, slapped together sandwiches and packed our gear. Everyone agonized about how to dress; it's a fine line between cold and wet, warm and dry, and hot and sweaty.

We were gone just after 8 a.m., without even a look back at the grand view that brought us. Heads down in the driving snow, we shuffled uphill for the first mile and a half, a 600-foot elevation gain that represents a cruel way to jump-start a stiff body.

More than half of our group were serious bicyclists, like Neisser, who at one point said with a straight face: "I don't mind spending eight hours on a bicycle, but I've got better things to do than ride for 14 hours straight.'' Most also were regular skiers, like Chris Locke of the foothill town of Lockeford, whose skating style left perfect, uniform Vs in the snow for mile after mile.

They quickly left the rest of us behind.

Too cold to stop for more than a drink of water or an equipment adjustment, we pressed on through the storm. The first skiers were back to Badger Pass before 11 a.m. The last slid into the parking lot at 11:30.

Helling, who earlier had told us the trip takes four to eight hours, said later that the group set a record pace. The next day, our bodies told us the same thing.