I'm still trying to figure out how to post pictures, so here goes. Two paths diverged in the woods . . . I chose both. On Friday, my good friend Parag and I fulfilled a long held dream for him to make it to the top of Nevada Falls. We took the JMT. This was my first trip on this leg of the JMT and found some beautiful views. Notice all of the overflow cascades next to Nevada Falls:
Can anyone help me identify all three formations? Half Dome on the Left and . . .
The JMT also gave us this breathtaking view of Upper Yosemite
Near the end of our hike at the Vernal Footbridge, this is was achieving a dream looked like for Parag. A well earned smile:
Day two, I went up the Mist trail. It was wet, cold and breathtakingly beautiful. Steve already covered the trip up to the cables, so I will throw in just a few more pictures.
Getting up to the cables was riskier than we expected based on a couple of trail reports from people coming down. Once on the base of Half Dome, however, most of the snow was gone. Here was a view looking up the cables. Those clouds would begin to get moving very quickly, and off to the left were some very dark clouds which appeared to be moving in our direction which prompted me to retreat when I was about 20 yards from the top of the cables. Nothing more than a few drops fell, but to this relatively inexperienced hiker, fast moving clouds + afternoon in the High Sierras + a steel cable in my bare hands convinced me to retreat.
Here is Steve C on the cables about 1/3 of the way up. As my teenager daughter said, "He is really buff for an old dude."
Sorry, Steve. Anybody over 40 is old to a teenager.
This trip was just extraordinary for me. Yosemite is and will remain one of my favorite places on Earth. I always get a sense of just what God meant when he saw the Earth and called it good.
Brent N
