Here’s Half Dome as seen from a vacant meadow in the valley
It’s sort of crazy. Everyone – well nearly everyone – who’s at Yosemite is obsessed with Half Dome, specifically, getting that perfect picture of it. We happened to be driving around right near sunset time taking pictures and found this nice vantage point. After about 5 minutes we were all set up taking some pictures and generally standing around taking in our surroundings. Along came an older gentleman with a walking stick. He’d been there about 3 weeks and sounded as if he were one of those obsessed with Half Dome (i’m not faulting him for that – i guess i’d have to put myself in that group too as i find the whole thing disturbingly interesting) Turns out we were there right during the perfect 3 or 4 days each year that you can catch the moonrise over Half Dome. He was filling us in on the whole thing so we decided to stick around for a while an see how the sunset would play out (it had been overcast off and on during the day) Somehow as we were talking to him the clouds cut out for a while and this great orange evening light moved across the peak – this happened a couple of times over a 30 minute or so period. I’d taken a couple of shots in color, but the black and white just looks a little clearer. The sun continued to set the clouds moved in pretty quickly. We decided the moon wasn’t going to be visible so we cut over to the lodge for a buffet dinner – our friend decided to stick around and see what would happen. I ran into him about 45 minutes later, the lodge was closed up and he was just getting there, no moon for him, and hence… no food either.