Yosemite was simply amazing. Words cannot even begin to describe the natural beauty of this place. We drove into the park via Hwy 140 on Saturday, Dec. 23. A few days before we arrived there was a storm that moved through, leaving a nice dusting of snow on the valley floor. We have never seen snow before, so we were just blown away by the beauty of it all. We got there a little late, so we kept going up to Yosemite West. We were very pleased with the house we rented there. There was even more snow and a nice area to play right outside. We were scheduled to leave the day after Christmas, but there was news of more snow coming so we changed our travel plans at the last minute to spend a few more days there. I'm so glad we did. There was several inches of fresh snowfall, we had so much fun playing in the snow! My husband and son were able to snowboard at Badger Pass, they had such a good time. Both are avid surfers and were very surprised at how different the two sports are.
A big concern of ours was being able to drive safely in the snow and ice since we were not experienced with it. The chains and 4WD car worked well, we never felt out of control or had any trouble at all. I think just being aware of sliding and not speeding really helped. A car in front of us flipped over on it's side closing the road in and out of the valley to Yosemite West for 2 hours one day. We saw 2 other cars that slid off the road that day too.
We were very lucky with the weather. There was snow but it was also warm during the week we were there; daytime temps were 40 - 50ish, night time was 30 - 40. I'd highly reccomend going to Yosemite in Winter!