My youngest son, Grant (age 30 and an experienced rock climber), asked me to climb to Half Dome with him last year in September, along with my lady friend, Laura. I was 71 and in reasonable shape. I had always wanted to do it. Laura and I did additional hiking at altitude for a week near Lee Vining to acclimatize.
We set out at 4 am with our headlamps and flashlight (Laura) up the John Muir Trail, as the Mist Trail was closed. This added 3+ miles to our trek. When daylight came, we were about even with Nevada Fall, and Laura stopped there and headed down. We continued on up, the switchbacks and grade a challenge. Finally, we got to the subdome. I looked up and thought I might not be able to do it, but gradually, step by step, we made it up with Grant leading the way, the views spectacular.
By 10 am, we reached the saddle just below the cables; a large number of the wooden cross beams were gone. Grant bounded ahead, while I hauled myself up about 100 feet. But at that point, the granite was very slick and vertical, with no cross beams. I didn’t have the upper-body strength to go on safely, so I stopped and went down. Grant easily got to the top, but later, coming down, he admitted it would have been much harder for me to do. We both felt we had done our best, and I was just happy to have survived. We headed back down, the return not being easy either — about a 20-mile round-trip excursion. Grant was very patient with me lagging behind. But the best thing was at the end when we met Laura and saw a king snake on the trail. It seemed to be a good omen. Great memories; this year we plan to go to El Capitan via the Yosemite Falls trail.
Alan Buchwald, Social media follower