Yosemite hotel to present play and music by Adams

The winter that Ansel Adams shot one of his most renowned images of Half Dome, Yosemite's iconic granite crest, he nearly gave up photography to become a classical musician.

This year, a play he wrote and set to music from that time, "The Bracebridge Dinner," celebrates its 80th anniversary in eight performances staged in the California park's Ahwahnee Hotel.

Hundreds of families have made attending the play — an elaborate Christmas story about a fictional English squire — a tradition, flying in from around the world to eat the accompanying sumptuous eight-course meal.