After another year of getting shut down by the Half Dome lottery, I convinced Peter and Katie that my amateur climbing skills could get us safely to the top of Half Dome before the cables went up. Tim, now living in the Bay Area, was keen to join, perhaps helped by a lack of understanding of what exactly we were attempting to do.
We're all still alive so at least we accomplished the, "get home safe", part of our mission, however, mother nature threw us a couple of curve balls that left us with some tough decisions and a few items still on the bucket list.
Tim thought I was crazy when I tossed him the ice axe as we were leaving the van in sunny 70 degree weather.
Deer friend,
Here's Sub Dome in the foreground and Half Dome in the background. The trail goes straight up these sparse trees into the snowfield where you see all the people. Turns out it wasn't so crazy to bring the Ice Axe after all. The hike to this point is ~8 miles
It was these dark(-ish) clouds that eventually turned us around. They don't look so bad now, in hindsight, but in the moment when we were contemplating committing to being on top of a massive granite peak for an hour holding a steel cable it seemed like more risk than was smart...
Two climbers making their way down the cables.
At least the retreat view isn't so bad. Here's Tim walking down Sub Dome.
A couple of climbers hanging out
We setup camp just outside of the park and prepped for Peter and Katie's first multi-pitch climb the next day.
However, we woke up to some sub-optimal climbing conditions. They may not have been good climbing conditions but it sure was beautiful.
Oh yeah, and I got stuck in a soft shoulder on the side of the highway when I stopped to take my jacket off. The rest of the crew were highly entertained as I got all muddy, snapped tow ropes, and took flack from the meanest good Samaritan I've ever met. We were back on the road in under 20 minutes with a good -albeit embarrassing - story and some extra motivation to finish my winch install.
