Half Dome – Yosemite Musing
For my money, one of the best viewpoints in the world is from the top of Glacier Point. The Yosemite Valley, Tenaya Canyon and all the park high points are visible from here. Yes, El Capitan is present, but the cream is Half Dome. From this perspective you can clearly see that only about 20% of it is missing. It was not cut apart by Glaciers – rather the face was created by eons of exfoliation. This is the freezing and expansion of rain in its granite cracks that eventually let go in vertical sheets. The pedestrian lookout is visited by about a million people each year. It gets a lot of abuse. The glorified outhouses seem to always reek. A fire in July of 1969 laid waste to a lot of it. Two nice hotels were burned to the ground. McCauley’s Mountain House and the Glacier Point Hotel (below) were both turned into ash piles. They were built in 1872 and 1917 respectively.
McCauley Mountain House
Glacier Point Hotel
Unrelated thought worth quoting: “The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.” – John Muir
*Mr. Half Dome -Rick Deutsch – www.HikeHalfDome.com
MrHalfDome's Blog 
February 7, 2011 at 6:46 pm |
Maureen, you apparently never visited while the hotel was there. It was not only a beautiful piece of human history within the park, but it offered the same glorious sights that you see today, but from a porch that was open to ALL to relax and enjoy. Many shared memorable times partaking in meals at the cafeteria while absorbing one of natures golden views. We now have a grand view, but we lost an equally grand building where thousands stood in all weather conditions to be amazed at the territory before them. In my opinion the hotel was much better than the current amphitheater.