Betsy my wife belongs to a women’s hiking group (the WHY hikers) that each year does a hike in or near Yosemite. This year’s hike was the fabled cable route on Half Dome. One of the keys to doing Half Dome is leaving really early. Not only is it a long hike, it is far easier doing the cables when there isn’t a throng of people vying for position. They fully embraced that tactic and left at 3:00 in the morning.
On the other hand, being a male and not invited, I slept in and had a leisurely breakfast.
I have a new Delorme inReach Satellite communicator and Betsy used that to track her progress and let me know when they were getting close to the sub-dome. I then took off from Placerville in the plane with Ron and Kai Kopitzke, also males and banned from the group (Ron happens to be married to Elise in the group and Kai is their son).
We rendezvoused with the group at the top and managed a few photos and a video, below. It was a little difficult getting a decent shot because by law you have to stay 2,000 feet above Half Dome. But it was fun and far easier flying there in 45 minutes than bothering with hiking boots and all that stuff.
West Coast Flying Adventures 