To break in the New Year, the trek to take in the view from 9,930-foot Cloud's Rest in the backcountry of Yosemite might seem an impossible fantasy.

Yet in a bone-dry drought, the trails out of Yosemite Valley are mostly clear, with a little ice. In a landmark dry winter, you can now make the 9.4-mile hike from Yosemite Valley to the world-class lookout across the backside of Half Dome and beyond to the northern rim of Yosemite Valley to El Capitan.

The drought is transforming all of California's landscapes: rivers, lakes and wetlands, from the mountains to the deserts. For January, the sights right now - and what they mean for recreation - are among the most provocative since the drought of 1977.

Rivers, streams

Rivers have turned into creeks, creeks into trickles, and the little feeders are drying up. One of the best statewide indicators is the Upper Sacramento River above Shasta Lake, where a year ago, for more than a month, it was roaring at 5,000 to 10,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). As this weekend started, it was measured at 200 cfs. The river has been so low and warm (for winter), there is an insect hatch in the afternoons and you can even flyfish (catch-and-release only) with dry fly action for an hour or two most afternoons.

-- Foothills: Dry Creek, which feeds into the Kaweah River east of Visalia, is dry; that's right, measured last week at zero cfs. Mill Creek, which feeds the Kings River near Pedra, is also dry. Near Yosemite, the Lake Eleanor Diversion Tunnel is dry. Putah Creek near Guenoc has no flow. Bear River at the crossing at Pleasant Grove Road (near Lincoln) is at 1 cfs, and South Honcut Creek south of Oroville is also at 1 cfs.

-- North state: When I rafted the entire Klamath River from Oregon to the Pacific Ocean in 5 1/2 days, it was running at 60,000 cfs at Orleans; it is now at 1,820 cfs. In the Redwood Empire, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, in an emergency action, has closed most of the Smith, Mad, Van Duzen, Eel and Mattole rivers to fishing because of low flows. The Smith, which typically runs at 6,000 cfs and up, was measured last week at 500 cfs at Jedediah Smith State Park. Near the Oregon border, the Upper Klamath has low, cold stable flows from releases from Iron Gate Dam, and is the one spot with excellent steelhead fishing.

Wetland marshes

When you fly over Northern California in January, it's supposed to look like an inland sea across the Sacramento Valley. Instead, the overflow bypasses and sinks are largely dry, farmlands are brown, and only a portion of the rice fields and wildlife refuge marshes have received water. My recent visit to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex, for instance, showed that all the vernal pools and seasonal wetlands on the flats were dry and brown. The aerial survey 10 days ago counted 360,820 geese and 858,125 ducks on the marsh complex. Many birds have shifted their location east to the vicinity of the Sacramento River near the Sutter Buttes, and north of there, even east of the river, wherever they can find more water.

Mountains

If you have not visited Tahoe, Yosemite or Shasta over the holidays, the miles of bare dirt and green forests in the high country are the most shocking sights of all.

-- Tahoe: In the Tahoe region, Donner Pass is mainly bare dirt along I-80, and the towns of Truckee, Tahoe City, South Lake Tahoe and Meyers are devoid of snow cover, with some patchy ice berms left over from snow a few weeks ago.

-- Yosemite: The idea that you can hike from Yosemite Valley to Clouds Rest is mind-boggling, and field scout Mark Kushner, who made the trip at the end of December, said he had it to himself. At the brink of the Nevada Fall, he said, you can see frozen snowdrifts occasionally break off and crash into the plunge pool. "Really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the middle of winter," he said.

-- Shasta: The 14,179-foot volcano looks like a giant gray cinder cone. The only splays of white amid the dacite are from historic glaciers near the top and streaks of ice that have set up in a few gullies. Neighboring 9,025-foot Mount Eddy has no snow, just a sliver of ice from its glacier on the flank of the summit.

Lakes

The catastrophic low water levels at many of the state's reservoirs have been well chronicled: Last summer, water managers drained many lakes and put their bets on a big winter, and now in drought, have miles of exposed lake bottoms.

-- Sierra foothills: The lowest lakes are in the foothills of the southern Sierra, where Kaweah, Success and Hensley are 94 percent empty, and Eastman (91 percent empty), Isabella (89 percent empty) and Pine Flat (83 percent empty) are in terrible shape with no refill in sight.

-- The big ones: The big recreation lakes are not only low, but now in January, when they should be rising, they are dropping each week. The water level at giant Shasta, the state's largest reservoir, is down 131 feet (37 percent full), and Folsom near Sacramento looks like a puddle at 19 percent full. Massive San Luis near Los Banos is usually the first to reach 90 percent in winter; it's at 30 percent. Of the other big ones, Oroville is at 36 percent, New Melones 43.

-- North state: Black Butte west of Orland is 89 percent empty.

Deserts

No soil moisture in the southern deserts means plants could go into induced hibernation this spring and not sprout in order to survive the hot desert sun. If rain does not arrive soon, that means no wildflower blooms at Death Valley this spring. At Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a cut-off stream of moisture from a distant typhoon last July poured two inches of rain in a day, and that fooled wildflowers into thinking fall was spring. That isn't enough to last into March. On the Carrizo Plain, Soda Lake is drying up, and with no rain, sandhill cranes will not show this winter.