Half Dome
Waking up the following morning, I found we had been visited by a bear who likes packs. While one was regaling us with the story of waking up to a bear chewing on his son's pack, then chasing that bear through the soggy meadow with a creek in his socks before the bear dropped the pack, another noted that he had a problem as his pack was quite gone. A neighbor soon found the pack, torn but serviceable for the trip down. Our fisherman, who had recent knee surgery and had been up the dome many times and had no fish biting, also decided to head down. The rest headed out for Half Dome, though two only got to the top of the steps on the subdome. I saw a nice sized rattlesnake on the way up the subdome. At the cables, I grabbed a rather good pair of gloves from the pile and found they weren't scary at all. Just a bit of work with rest points every 10 feet, and they were needed.
Precarious looking photos were taken and the various lumps were explored and a photographer knocked over the cairns that people had put up. I couldn't find a USGS marker anywhere on the mountain. Heading back down was easier than up but the crowd had thickened. I replaced my gloves on the pile shortly before a ranger came and picked them all up to haul off. She said they may be useful, but they eventually get infested and they are technically littering. They rather larger than needed pile there had only been growing since Sunday. We got our permits checked at the bottom, then headed back to camp. The heat was getting unbearable for the last little uphill. We relaxed a bit and I tried to draw white flowers on white paper. They had been extremely tentatively identified as dogwood, but they are probably azaleas.
Precarious looking photos were taken and the various lumps were explored and a photographer knocked over the cairns that people had put up. I couldn't find a USGS marker anywhere on the mountain. Heading back down was easier than up but the crowd had thickened. I replaced my gloves on the pile shortly before a ranger came and picked them all up to haul off. She said they may be useful, but they eventually get infested and they are technically littering. They rather larger than needed pile there had only been growing since Sunday. We got our permits checked at the bottom, then headed back to camp. The heat was getting unbearable for the last little uphill. We relaxed a bit and I tried to draw white flowers on white paper. They had been extremely tentatively identified as dogwood, but they are probably azaleas.