The day after Thanksgiving 2002, Chris, Brett, and I drove from Dan and Linda's to Yosemite. Kind of a last minute road trip. We found a place to nice place to stay, right outside the park entrance. Yosemite Falls in the background.

When we arrived at about 3 pm, we visited the ranger station and asked about day hikes. Chris locked onto the Half Dome hike, 17 miles round trip, up about a mile, 10-12 hrs. We barely had that much day light.

But we decided to get up early and give 'er a try. Here is half Dome from the Valley floor. We would start in the valley on the right and go up behind the mountain and come out on the left shoulder.

This is Nevada Falls. Only about 3.5 miles up the trail, getting to this point is considered strenuous. The trail here was pretty icy, with a steep cliff on one side. We almost lost Brett here.

At the top of Nevada Falls.

We got to the shoulder, but not much more than that.

Chris started hiking up the mountain. Brett and (mostly) me chickened out. We are the little dots on the trail in the middle of the pic. Very creepy!

From the shoulder of Half Dome.

Notice I'm not getting real close to the edge?

Very scenic, and very creepy.