Split Pinnacle from Little Brother
From the humorous (previous photo in photostream) to the sublime, we take the Way Back machine back to the Thanksgiving weekend of 1975 for one of my first climbing trips to Yosemite Valley. Three of us climbed the West Face Middle route up Little Brother, a very scenic route and a particularly good route for beginners. I stopped partway up to take this shot of Split Pinnacle, which has a couple of interesting routes up it. Perfect midafternoon sunshine really lights up the valley walls behind Split Pinnacle and the trees growing in the talus slopes around it.
I missed the best shot of the day, however. We topped out just about sunset with gorgeous views: first of the sunset itself, then the alpenglow as it touched only the highest peaks while the valley was already quite dark beneath us. This posed a problem since our route down was a reasonably wide (approximately 1 meter) ledge that ran down the sheer face of Little Brother and eventually connected to some broader faces we could walk down. Unfortunately, it was already so dark that we were having difficulties seeing our footing, and it was rapidly getting darker. We stopped our descent and were debating the merits of staying overnight up on the broad summit of Little Brother or trying to find our way down on the face of a high vertical cliff in the dark, when we noticed that the sky to the east was starting to get lighter. A few minutes later a full moon rose above the peaks and bathed the valley in the most intense and beautiful (and welcome!) light you can possibly imagine, enhanced by reflections off the light-colored granites of the valley walls. Unfortunately, it wasn't bright enough to allow capture of this awesome moonlit image with a handheld camera, and I wasn't about to pack a tripod up that climb!
Once the moon cleared the opposing valley wall, it was bright enough to safely pick our way down to the valley floor and a well-earned glass of slivovitz, although it was still almost pitch black whenever a tree or two shaded the ledge!
At that moment, the scene that unfolded before me - Yosemite Valley lit by a full moon - seemed like the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. It still is...
Split Pinnacle from Little Brother
From the humorous (previous photo in photostream) to the sublime, we take the Way Back machine back to the Thanksgiving weekend of 1975 for one of my first climbing trips to Yosemite Valley. Three of us climbed the West Face Middle route up Little Brother, a very scenic route and a particularly good route for beginners. I stopped partway up to take this shot of Split Pinnacle, which has a couple of interesting routes up it. Perfect midafternoon sunshine really lights up the valley walls behind Split Pinnacle and the trees growing in the talus slopes around it.
I missed the best shot of the day, however. We topped out just about sunset with gorgeous views: first of the sunset itself, then the alpenglow as it touched only the highest peaks while the valley was already quite dark beneath us. This posed a problem since our route down was a reasonably wide (approximately 1 meter) ledge that ran down the sheer face of Little Brother and eventually connected to some broader faces we could walk down. Unfortunately, it was already so dark that we were having difficulties seeing our footing, and it was rapidly getting darker. We stopped our descent and were debating the merits of staying overnight up on the broad summit of Little Brother or trying to find our way down on the face of a high vertical cliff in the dark, when we noticed that the sky to the east was starting to get lighter. A few minutes later a full moon rose above the peaks and bathed the valley in the most intense and beautiful (and welcome!) light you can possibly imagine, enhanced by reflections off the light-colored granites of the valley walls. Unfortunately, it wasn't bright enough to allow capture of this awesome moonlit image with a handheld camera, and I wasn't about to pack a tripod up that climb!
Once the moon cleared the opposing valley wall, it was bright enough to safely pick our way down to the valley floor and a well-earned glass of slivovitz, although it was still almost pitch black whenever a tree or two shaded the ledge!
At that moment, the scene that unfolded before me - Yosemite Valley lit by a full moon - seemed like the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. It still is...