Contented Glow

From Olmstead Point, Half Dome is 5 and 1/3 miles away as the crow files. But in the Sierra Nevada nothing is as simple as that, nor predictable. At every turn, there is another amazing sight that stops you in your tracks and delays you towards your destination. The weather changes at times by the hour. One can be basking in warm sunlight at noon to only find themselves bundled up tight at sunset braving a snowstorm. Which was just the case on this day. And even though a fiercely cold snowstorm sent snow flurries every few minutes Half Dome could not have looked more content glowing in the late afternoon sun. And for those few brave souls who stood out there with me in the snow that evening, elation is the only word that comes close to express the state we were in as we watched Half Dome, the Light, and the clouds playing. Were it not for the contented glow inside of us, we just might have noticed the cold.