The Mountains Win Again

Well, there wasn't any lightning. And we didn't chicken out. But we didn't climb Half Dome.

Last week the weather in Yosemite was beautiful. 80's on the valley floor with sunny skies and happy hikers all over the place. The nearer we got to our time to leave for the park, the worse the weather got. Temperatures dipped into the 30's at night, 40's in the day. Thunderstorms were projected. Snow was on the way. It didn't look pretty.

And while the weather turned out to indeed not be pretty, the park still was.

As we drove up the the Sierras from an elevation below 500 feet in the San Joaquin to a peak of about 6000 feet on the road into Yosemite, we drove right into a rainstorm. When we arrived at the park, it had stopped raining so we figured we'd get in a quick hike up to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls to warm up for our expected Half Dome hike the next day.

Somewhere around halfway up the three-and-a-half mile trail that ascends about 2500 feet, the rain started again...or maybe it was mist from the falls...or both. We reached the top and had some great views of the valley floor, but as for Yosemite's higher trademarks around us, they were shrouded behind what would become a familiar wall of gray.

On the way back down we got our best view of Half Dome of the entire weekend (see the 10th photo below). In hindsight, we were very lucky that we decided on this spur-of-the-moment hike, because the weather turned ugly Friday night and we would not have had another chance to do it again.

Snow closed the Glacier Point road and was falling at about 5500 feet, which meant we couldn't drive to any peaks outside the valley, and we couldn't really hike to them either. Pretty disappointing, right?

Despite that it didn't stop raining for all 72 hours that we were there, despite that the valley had a ceiling that was just below the height of all the things you go there to see, despite that our main purpose for going there (Half Dome) was invisible, let along unclimbable, despite that my brand-new $100 shoes performed so badly I wished I'd been barefoot, despite temperatures that climbed about as high above 45 as we did above the valley floor, despite all of that, it was predictably spectacular.

The photo above and all the rest in the slide show below prove that there really is no bad time to be there...but next time, Half Dome won't be able to hide again!

Off To The Top Of The World (Sorta)

Friday morning, I am heading for Yosemite for a nice (rainy, likely very crowded) Memorial Day weekend in one of the the most spectacular places on Earth. In the past two years, I have been blessed with the opportunity and the means to visit a number of natural wonders in the southwestern states, and this is the latest.

Last Spring Break, I did a whirlwind road trip tour of the Canyonlands, including Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, the Four Corners, Glen Canyon, Natural Bridges Park, Capital Reef, Utah's Highway 12 ("A Byway Through Time"), Kodachrome Basin, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon and of course the Mojave Desert. Last month I visited Death Valley for the first time and saw some of the miraculous wonders there.

But none of these amazing places compares to Yosemite and I simply don't know the words that could adequately describe the utter majesty of the place. I will let some photos do the talking when I return.

Depending on the weather, we are going to attempt to summit Half Dome on either Saturday or Sunday. I'm not sure which day because we are not yet sure which day will have better conditions (likely neither will be great). And I say "attempt to summit" because if there is an thundercloud anywhere on the horizon, you can't go near the summit.

The reason for this is that after a nearly eight mile hike up 5000 feet from the valley floor, the trail reaches the exposed granite Dome itself (see the photo above). At this point, there is no more shelter and there is no more trail. Instead, there is about 400 feet of steel cables bolted to a nearly sheer rock face and held in place with iron posts. Between being the highest point in quite some distance and the unintentional metal lighting rods sticking out, this is not a good place to be in a thunderstorm, and unfortunately they are all over the forecast throughout the weekend.

With luck, we will reach the cables early enough in the day that the storms won't have developed yet. Assuming that neither my wife nor I chicken out (I seriously doubt it if we get that close), and assuming the weather holds, we will each climb to the top of one of our longest held goals. We certainly won't be the first to make it there, but it will be our first time and that's all that matters.

So sometime around noon on Saturday (and again on Sunday, just in case) think happy, lighting-free, good-traction thoughts.