After navigating a snowy ascent, we exited the trees and were faced with the summit of Half Dome, which I figured was only about 3 miles high. We sat at the base and ate lunch with a deer (not pictured). After restoring our strength and assembled our courage, we started up the rock.

After climbing for 5 essentially uninterrupted hours, I wanted to reach the top of Half Dome. I really did. But the trail to the top narrows to less than two feet, and surrounded by things that were only down, I started to succumb to vertigo. I honestly didn’t trust my legs to carry me to the top. A wise man once said, “Better living through less pride.” This could be contracted to “Living through less pride,” and that’s the course of action I took. Odie wanted to continue, but as you can see, I was in rough shape.

The crazy thing is that this old guy (maybe over 70) comes trotting up this insane trail, hands behind his back like he’s on a Sunday stroll through the park. What was that again? Better living through less pride.

Here’s Odie at our high point.

After getting our feet back onto nice safe dirt, we looked back at Half Dome and the braver souls still climbing and started heckling them. Odie yelled, “You are all nuts!” I believe I chanted, “S-A-N-I-T-Y! Sanity, sanity, that’s our cry!” It was a sad sight.

We took it easier on the way down, stopping for more pictures of the surrounding area. In the distance (~100 mi away) is Cloud’s Rest, aptly named.

We must have made very good time going up the mountain, because we saw very few hikers on the trip up, but on the descent, we encountered many people on the way up. We also saw more natives of the mountain.

A couple hours later, we arrived back at the top of Nevada Falls, which we inspected more closely.

We elected to take the longer, less intense route back to the valley, although we learned why the falls were looking so impressive.

Eleven hours later, we were back in Yosemite Valley. Although we didn’t stand on the diving board, we also didn’t die, and that was objective #1. What a great trip.