Anyway, Loyd said he was going to post this, but I missed it and the ensuing discussion. David and I corresponded by email. Other than my illiteracy (saying I don’t know about reservations at Ostrander and then proceeding to explain about reservations at Ostrander), there are some other things to add. Here’s my follow up email to David. Not sure what the comment form will do with the links, but here goes:

….

David,

Got it. I would say that the real pleasure of Yosemite in the winter is backcountry skiing (not necessarily nordic, but backcountry, meaning it could be lightweight cross-country, heavyweight cross-country, telemark or alpine touring depending on where you go).

A couple of things. In my opinion, skis are pretty much a necessity for anything FUN in the Sierra in winter. You can’t believe how much snow we get and how long the approaches would be postholing in the snow. I grew up in Vermont, skiing, ice climbing in Smuggler’s Notch and Lake Willoughby, hiking in summer and winter and rock climbing, so I have a pretty good idea of what the conditions are in the east. In Vermont, a huge snowstorm is three feet and a big snow pack is 12-15 feet. In the Sierra, we frequently get single storms that drop 6-8 feet in 24 hours and we commonly have 30 foot snowpacks at high elevations. What this means is that in winter, roads are often closed at fairly low elevations and this necessitates a long ski approach for efficient travel. You can use snowshoes, but I find that really inconvenient on the return trip.

You can bag summits in the Sierra any time of year and you will not find any crowds on Whitney in mid-winter, for example, but you will find the road closed considerably lower than in the summer. You can also do Mount Shasta in the winter and, for strange historical reasons, they actually have a road that gets plowed to 6700′ which makes the summit climb only six miles and 7400′ elevation gain so it can be done in a day (and can be quite crowded).

The main season for snow and ice and gully climbing, is typically early summer (snow climbs) and early fall (gully ice climbs along the lines of what you might find on Mt Washington in the winter). Much of the couloir climbing that involves crampons and such takes place in late summer or early fall, especially in years with big snow packs. This is because the gullies are typically choked with snow all winter and then turn to ice after several months of freeze/thaw. So for example, Dana couloir is an easy ice gully in September, but a moderate ski descent from whenever there is enough snow until about now ( I was just up there skiing last week).

Back to your original question, there is no guide service that will guide Half Dome in winter (or really any peak within the park). YMS, the service with the park concession, operates only ski tours in the winter. They do hiking and climbing guiding from about April to November. In general, the west side of the Sierra, because of long low-angle approaches, is poorly adapted to winter mountaineering, and most of that happens from the east side.

There are some excellent guide services on the East side of the Sierra. Doug Nidever, is one of these that I know a little and have seen climb and guide. He’s an excellent and experienced guide who does it all. He guides El Capitan, ice climbing, ski tours, winter mountaineering, and winter peak ascents by custom arrangement in the Sierra and has a full winter program from the east side.

http://themountainguide.com/

I would contact him and and set something up a little further south and east in the Sierra, which unlike the part of the Sierra you saw on your Yosemite trip, is really one of the great winter ranges in America. The southern Sierra is taller, craggier and steeper than the Rockies, generally more pleasant weather than the Whites, and more interesting than the rolling northwestern Sierra of Yosemite.