I never though I would say it, but i genuinely miss the seasons right now.

Growing up in the Midwest(Michigan & Ohio), fall was always such a gorgeous time of year.  You could literally smell winter coming as you gazed around at the semi-barren tree branches and heard the crunch of dead orange and deep red leaves underneath your feet.

College football Saturdays on a brisk fall day were some of the best days of all time.  Maybe it is the grass is always greener mentality which I have been accused of before, but as I sat on my couch today watching Michigan Football in board-shorts, I began to actually miss Ohio for the first time in 5 years.

Well, maybe it is Ohio or maybe it the mountains, or maybe its just the restlessness I get in my soul after staying in one place for too long.  Everyone has certain elements of their youth that brings back a rush of memories.  For me they are freshly cut grass, the smell of a hockey rink, morning in the mountains and the smell, look and feel of a perfectly crisp fall day in the Midwest playing football in my backyard.

OK, enough reminiscing, something has to give, gonna have to get some real fall weather in my life real soon…..

I am 27 years old, and after this trip I wonder why I waited so long to finally go to Yosemite.

The place is awesome and the whole valley looks like a postcard.  You can literally see exactly where the Glacier came through and carved out the valley.  Yosemite is also home to 3 famous mountains.  El Capitan and The Sentinel are great mountains, but we were here to conquer none other than The Half Dome.

Now most people will start around 6 am and hike through the day to summit and then come back down in the afternoon/evening.  We decided to take a little different approach.  We started just after 9 pm and got to the base of Half Dome around 3am.

We camped out below the dome until we couldn’t take it anymore and finally scaled the remaining thousand feet or so by cable to get to the top just before sunrise.

It was definitely a surreal moment looking down a vertical mile to the valley floor on either side of you as you hold on to an old steel cable attached to the top of a rock.  Its a rush and even more so at night, but absolutely worth it when you get to the top and look around a gorgeous valley below as the sun starts to peak over the eastern mountains.  I highly recommend it.

I usually try to tie all my adventures and trips into business somehow, but for this post I think I will just leave it at this.

Go see some damn nature, you’ll feel better.

Mat