Half Dome

Several weeks ago, maybe in a moment of insanity, our friends--Colleen and Eion--, 'Chung and I decided that we would go to Yosemite and hike Half Dome. As the day approached I started to seriously question our sanity...as I think most of us did. 'Chung has done the hike three or four times before, so he wasn't too concerned. I'd never been to Yosemite before, so I was looking forward to seeing everything I'd heard so much about.


We left after 'Chung and Colleen got off work on Friday around 6. After I managed to take a few detours getting out of town, we made our way towards a charming little hostel in Midpines, the Yosemite Bug. Since we got there after ten and left before dawn, I really couldn't tell you much about, but our little room was clean and nice and it seemed the Bug would've been a fun place to hang out and explore during daylight hours.


After a few hours sleep we woke up just after 4:30 and headed toward Yosemite (which was still about an hour away). When we got to the park at 6:30 it was still pretty quiet and it took us a while to get oriented (without a map), figure out where to park and where to start the hike. Finally shortly after 7:00 we were on our way.

Not long onto the trail we made our first friend, young black bear. It was fun to see him and be fairly close...any closer and I would've been nervous....this picture makes him look farther away than I think he was.


He was sitting on a large boulder just above us watching all the people walk by. And boy were there a lot of them. You got the impression this guy was used to the crowds. It was nice to see him early on the hike too, because later, when we saw several deer I was far too tired to pull out the camera.


We started our hike at Happy Isles, the Vernal Falls trailhead (Mist Trail) and made it to the first falls after about a mile or two. There wasn't a whole lot of water coming down the waterfalls since it's fairly late in the summer. Someday I'd like to see them in their full glory, but it was nice not to get wet since it was a fairly cool day. We actually had beautiful weather all day.


The next falls were the Nevada falls. I thought the steps up to the falls would never end....and I'm still feeling them. I had to take the hike slowly...very slowly. 'Chung walked with me while Colleen and Eion maintained a fairly normal pace and took lots of breaks to let me catch up.


After almost 8 miles of hiking, going what seemed like straight up, constantly surrounded by incredible scenery, we finally made it to the base of the cables just before 2:00. This is where we started to run into a bit of trouble. There were so many people trying to get up the cables that there was a 45 min. wait just to start climbing the cables. After that it took about 45 min to climb so that it was 3:30 before we made it to the top.


I really didn't enjoy the climb up the cables. I felt like it was dangerously crowded with people coming up and down both inside and outside the cables. Oftentimes it was so steep that it was difficult to keep a foothold and because of the crowds (and my lack of stamina) it was very slow so that we often had to maintain a precarious stance for several minutes at a time. The view from the top, however, was amazing....didn't get as many pictures as I would've liked because I was exhausted by the time we finally made it.


As we started our climb down the mountain we knew that we'd have to move fast if we were to make down before nightfall. We practically ran down the mountain and just made it to the bottom of the "steps" before the valley got dark. The last few miles were in the dark, but fortunately I'd brought some flashlights and the trail was very smooth for that part. In all, what took about 9 hours to get up took only around 4 to get back. The hike was a total of around 17 miles roundtrip and we climbed almost 5000 feet in elevation. When we got to the shuttle stop shortly after 8:00 we were all about ready to collapse. The bus which would take us back to our car was a wonderful sight. It was late when we got home, but I think we all slept well when we finally got back.


All in all, my first trip to Yosemite was a grueling, but incredible experience. My knees are still feeling the aftermath of flying down about a million stone "steps". Next time I'd love to spend a little more time there....and I think IF I do Half Dome again staying a night at the backpackers camp on the way will be essential.