Half Dome Hike

[Picture intensive, non-knitting]

The trip to Yosemite was fairly relaxing and not as long as the drive to Lassen. The pictures from the car weren't so great because the sky was overcast, the windows on the car were FILTHY, and the scenery wasn't nearly as pretty as the trip to The Fold. I was amazed by how much litter lined CA-120.

Here are some animals under a tree. I have no idea what animals these are. Horses? Mules? Donkeys? A lot of the trip looked like this minus the animals: lots of brown with the occasional tree.

I like shacks. This was one of the fanciest shacks we passed.

There were cows.

Schmoopie!

We made it to our cabin just before dark, and I tried to stuff myself silly for dinner so I wouldn't have to eat as much on the hike. Then I gave myself 30 minutes to knit before turning in, and I wish I could have finished the sock but I didn't come close.

Because we are woefully out of shape, the hubby and I decided to start really early to leave enough time to get to the top before the crowd rushed in. At 5:45am, the alarm went off and I was up and ready to go in the dark. We packed our stuff, checked out, ate a light breakfast, and made our way to the nearest parking lot (1 mile from the trailhead) by 6:30am. We didn't know what we were doing and didn't have a map, so we happened to take the John Muir Trail instead of the other shorter way up. It was starting to get light by then, and we had the trail mostly to ourselves. We passed a particularly photogenic squirrel near the last bathroom:

I don't have many pictures on the way up because we usually wait until the way down for picture taking. I try to remember what the most scenic shots would be, otherwise I would be taking pictures every 5 seconds and never make it anywhere. By 9:30, we were making a good pace and thought that we would certainly make our goal of reaching the top by noon. We might even make it there by 11am. Then we passed a sign marking 2 miles to the top of Half Dome, and I shouted out some sounds of glee. I was getting tired, but 2 more miles was certainly doable. Then at about 1.5 miles away, we came to a clearing and saw exactly what was left to hike. At this point I realized noon was but a pipe dream. To give a sense of scale, there are already lots of people making their way up this monolith. Can you spot them?

The people making their way up toward the infamous cables are circled in red. The cables and the people on them are outlined in the blue box. The way up Half Dome to the cables is basically a bunch of stairs put into the side of the dome. It is ass.

When we got closer, there were more people making their way up the cables.

It's really steep. The people who look like they're at the top here? They're not at the top. Once I got to the part that looks like the top there, I thought I must have been really close. Then people coming down started saying "You're at least half way there!" Half Way?!?! I thought I was going to die. Well, slip, fall and plummet to my death is what I mean.

Schmoopie is afraid of heights and decided he couldn't do it, so he went back down while I made my way up the windy, cold, brutal side of the dome in not enough clothing. It was fricking cold. It was also steep as hell, and my shoes didn't have enough grip, so I was sliding around a bit. The cables are held up by poles, and there is a wooden slat between most pairs of poles that you can rest your legs on and get balance. I paused for a good minute at many of them. There was one section that I don't think I physically could have gotten through, except someone helped me out and pulled me up to the next wooden slat. Thank goodness, I would have hated to go back down after making it up to that part. There was also a minute where the sky darkened, and a few drops came down. That was really scary, but then it passed. The thought of going up on the rock (let alone the way down) when it was wet and slippery was so horrifying, I blocked it out of my mind.

The top was beautiful, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked because I was alone, really cold and camera-less. I walked around for ten minutes and looked over the frightening ledge. I had brought my sock with me to finish and photograph at the top, but I didn't have the camera, and the cold wind and fear of oncoming rain made me want to go back down.

The way down actually wasn't bad at all and probably took 5-10 minutes. I was really glad the rock wasn't wet. See how windy it is? My hair is everywhere, and I was afraid of my glasses flying off.

After I made it back down, we took a 2 minute break and decided to head down toward the trees because it had gotten really cold and was windy in the exposed area. I did manage to get a 30 second break in one of the few trees on Half Dome:

We scrambled down the stairs as quickly as we could and made it to the wonderful windstopping trees. Then it started raining. Not heavy rain, but rain that's light enough that you know it's going to last for hours, but heavy enough to soak through your clothes. When you're hours away from the car. With no rain gear because you forgot it at home and want to kick yourself in the ass. Yeah, that sucked. A large part of the trail was loose dirt that felt walking through sand on the way up. It was even worse when it turned to mud. My poor handknit socks are muddy! I did manage to get some pretty pictures of wet stuff though.

I was exhausted when we got to Nevada Falls. At this point, there were two ways to go, and someone told us that the John Muir Trail was a mile longer, but the other one was steeper. For some reason Schmoopie decided one mile less was better, and I had a BAD feeling about it. We went up and down endless rock stairs that were wet and slippery. My legs started failing, and I really couldn't stand up well at this point, but we forged on slowly. Here's a picture of the nicest stairs we took. Some of the other parts were just lots of rock that were pretty slippery and slanted. I went down really really really slowly and cursed taking this route the entire way, one mile less be damned.

We did manage to get some of our most beautiful pictures on this path though. I loved Nevada Falls in the rain.

At the bottom of Nevada Falls was Emerald Pool. It was beautifully green, and the raindrops were quite pretty.

The Merced.

We finally made it back to the car by 5pm, ten and a half hours and 19 miles later. The rain on the way back slowed us down a lot. I've read that it should take half as long coming down as going up, but it took 6.5 hours up and 4 hours down. I was completely beat, and my legs are still feeling it today. It was certainly the most physically challenging thing I've ever done, and I'm really glad to have done it. Maybe if I do this every weekend (HA!), I'll get into good shape. Seriously though, if we ever do this again, I will remember to bring my waterproof shell, fleece, gloves, climbing shoes for traction, less food (holy crap did we have too much food with us), and a wide angle lens (we only brought the 50mm). Three liters of water was more than enough, but it wasn't a hot day. I would also do StairMaster training like crazy beforehand.

I definitely want to go back to Yosemite. This was our first trip there, and it looks like there is so much to see. Maybe we'll go for an entire weekend in early spring when the waterfalls aren't as dry and hike Half Dome again!