So after teaching a crazy summer session (2 classes) on something I hadn’t taught before (World religions), I left for Yosemite. Here are some pictures of the park on my trip up to Half Dome.

Woke up at 3:30am to get to the trailhead by 4:30…of course, we were a bit behind schedule, so we started at 6am. Out of a group of 12, 5 of us attempted it and only 2 of us (the men) succeeded.  The other group was happily playing in waterfalls, riding bikes, walking along creeks, and other stuff.  Anyway, here’s my shot at Half Dome just before sunrise in a car going twice the speed limit on windy pitch dark roads.

Don’t know what this is, but it seemed nice at the time.

The sun is rising behind us.  Simply amazing.

There’s Half Dome on the left.  It’s mind-boggling that that was what we would be hiking to.

A little pit stop after a grueling hike up.  Bumped into a Russian (?) group arguing about where they were.  I suggested an answer, but they all said in unison, “No, no, no!”  (I forgot my map at the cabins).  Also, a shot of Nevada Falls.

At the same place, where we saw this little critter.

Half Dome again on the left, Nevada Falls on the right.

At the top of Nevada Falls…

We saw this little ambitious tree at Nevada Falls.

Gay pose.

Not so gay warning.

That’s us.

One of the many deer we saw along the way.  This one was a hungry feller.

Eventually, we got to the bottom of the famous cables of Half Dome. Most parts are sloped at a 45 degree angle, I believe.  Some of it felt like 60. That’s my friend Cliff climbing up first.

After walking 8.5 miles and climbing 5000 feet in elevation, we are at the top of one of the most beautiful places on Earth.  The pictures don’t do it justice. By the way, there’s nothing behind this ledge…

In fact, this is what you’d see looking over. 8000 feet straight down.

What else is there to say?

Gay pose #2. (that’s the ledge I’m on above)

Even more gay.

Look at me!  Pretty scary stuff, especially since we still had the recent earthquake in the back of our minds…

Here’s a marmot that poked it’s head into someone’s opened backpack and stole a bag of trailmix.  Another marmot came by to fight over it and this one won.

On the other side of Half Dome.

Same thing, different angle. Someone had just proposed to his girlfriend a few feet from here.

After staying up at the top for an hour and a half, we reluctantly began our descent.  I could have stayed for at least a few more hours.

Some people think going down is harder.  I thought it was 1000x easier.

Don’t let go! (We saw a dropped Nalgene bottle and a pudding snack drop to their demise)

At around 3:30pm, we look back at what we had just conquered.

Wow.  This is the last water source on the way to half dome (or, the first water source on the way down).  I was out of water, so I had to pump/filter some water from this place.  Amazing.

Weird rock formation.  Since we were so tired and running late, we had to keep going and minimize pictures.

I believe this is Nevada Falls, from the other side.  We took the “shorter” route back, which was horrible.

Final gay pose at Vernal Falls. Apparently, a bear had just passed this area 2 minutes before we got there.  It was heading toward our path, so we cautiously took a detour, which further delayed our return back.  I didn’t want to get eaten today.

Got back to the parking lot at around 8:30pm, which means it took us about 14 and a half hours for the entire roundtrip (including the rest at the top).  I will go again, someday.