Last weekend, I climbed Half Dome in Yosemite National Park - a first for me. It's always something I've wanted to do and this time I got paid to do it.
I'm a photog at the San Francisco Chronicle and was assigned to climb Half Dome for a story on the dangerous conditions crowds pose on the granite dome. The last 150 yards of the climb is so steep that steel cables have been placed to allow more climbers access to the fantastic views from the top of the 8,842 foot summit. You reach these cables after an 8 mile 5,000 foot climb so it's not for the out of shape visitors. The climb however has gotten so popular that on summer weekends, hundreds climb the rock daily and some impatient ones make risky moves on the cables - one slip and it's pretty much a 5,000 foot drop to the valley floor. Three weeks ago, one such climber slipped and fell to his death, the 3rd death on the rock in 8 months.
Anyway, it was a great day (aside from the crowds) and I had fun. It was the 3rd trip to Yosemite for me in just over a month. Earlier, we did a story on the Yosemite Search and Rescue Team - got to hang out in a helicopter as they practiced short haul rescues in Tuolumne Meadows. And prior to that, we did a story on the impact of the low winter snowpack and it's effect on Yosemite.
Now if I can only convince my editors to let me set up an office in Yosemite!
Links to the stories with my photos :
Crowds on Half Dome
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... QSQ1V1.DTL
Search and Rescue :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... Q685T1.DTL
Spring in Yosemite :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... Q2AP41.DTL
Me on what's called the Diving Board on top of Half Dome.
Awesome experience.