#clouds rest

Yosemite National Park, CA

Photographer: Tom Olejniczak

Original caption: "In celebration of his 50th birthday and 50th ascent of Half Dome, Griff Joyce recruited 50 friends to hike Half Dome, catch sunset, and descend at night. After seeing Kurt Lawson's and my previous photos of Half Dome at night, Griff reached out to us to document his celebration. Kurt photographed it from Mt. Watkins, Matthew Saville photographed it from Cascade Cliffs (near Starr King), and I photographed it from Clouds Rest. Together, we carried 12 cameras and 19 lenses into the wilderness. This video shows the results of the effort."

Sunsets in Yosemite

Clouds Rest

View of Half Dome from the top of Clouds Rest

Almighty Half Dome.

Before yesterday, the only "hikes" I've ever done were to a climbing crag or a 45 minute steep hill above a lake near my hometown. Last year, many of my friends had hiked "Clouds Rest" in Tuolumne. I saw the pictures and thought to myself wow, I wish I enjoyed hiking because those are some beautiful views. Clouds Rest is the only hike I've ever sortof wanted to do. Usually when I'm visiting a national park, I'm there to climb. I've actually never done a hike in Yosemite and I've been there probably 50 times. This weekend, most of my "climbing friends" were at a music festival or spending time with other friends so I decided to take this opportunity to hike Clouds Rest. I feel so accomplished. I warned my friend that I hiked it with, if I feel dead after the switchbacks, we'll just do sunrise lake hike. We got to that point in like 1 hour so I said let's keep trucking to Clouds Rest! I made it and I got the picture to prove it. Probably the longest hike I will ever do. But I'm willing to do more hikes.. unless there's an opportunity to climb :). Climbing >