not gonna lie, this was scary to me

So we climb the 909340283045923 stairs up to sub dome (it is about 12:30 now) and see our final destination in sight:



They take the cables down on October 12ish every year (they put them up in May) to prevent avalanche damage to the poles, so this was one of the last times in the season you can get up half dome. The granite was iced over in the morning, and its extremely dangerous to climb it when its icy/wet, but the sun had melted/dried the majority of the water away by now so we were pretty fortunate.

The half dome cables are one of those things on earth that are extremely dangerous but tons of people do anyway (I think 50,000 people per year make it up there). If you slip, the smooth granite and steep angle make it impossible to stop and then you just tumble off half dome to the valley floor 2,000 feet below. There have been 5 or 6 deaths in the last couple years, so no mistakes allowed. Most of the bad stuff happens when people climb it in bad weather (you aren't supposed to climb half dome if you even see clouds in the sky) but as you can see from the pictures we had a beautiful day.

You can see Sabo in orange in this picture, it gives you an idea of how steep it is



Once we got out of the super steep section (right in the middle), sabo whipped this picture down so you can see the incredible views



The granite is so smooth that you cant really use your legs to climb, so you 100% use your arms and wear gloves to help grip the cable better/keep your hands warm. We made it up without incident and chilled up top for a while, looking at the beautiful valley





We had a 5 or so hour hike out, so we headed back down about 2:00. Going down the cables is easier than coming up, even though you get vertigo inducing views at every step.



But you can stop worrying (Im looking at you mom, leah, tara, and grandma) because we made it down safely are are A-OK. For some reason I was just as nervous about Sabo as I was myself (probably because I am a caring, unselfish, sweetheart) and was picturing having to make the call to Mrs. Sabo telling her how eric fell off half dome... so I was very relieved when we both had made it back down safely.

We ate a quick meal on sub dome and made the trek down using a different trail, so we could see some cool new scenery



We made it back to the car about 7ish, stopped at the nearest gas station to drink gatorade and slam some beef jerky, and made it back to Oakland at 11ish. It was an awesome whirlwind and somewhere I've always wanted to go, so A+ for that.

I can now check Yosemite off of my Life "TO DO" list, yessssssssssssssssssss