Yosemite Trip: Day 4
This was a day worth traveling across the country for.
The hike up to the top of Half Dome takes around 11 hours or so, and this time of year, there is only about 12 hours of daylight. Therefore it is critical that you get an early start. So, Kelly and I woke up early, quickly threw on our hiking gear and had a quick breakfast, then boarded the Valley Shuttle to the Happy Isles (don’t ask me what that means) stop. We began our day-long journey at about 8:30 AM.
Nearly every step of the first two or three miles is uphill, but there are a lot of nice views of Nevada Falls and Liberty Cap, which alone would make the trip worth it. After that the trail levels out for a couple of miles as you wind your way around the mountain, through a thick forest to the base of Half Dome.
Finally, after about 8 miles of hiking, the real work begins. There is about a quarter mile of granite steps that take you up to a clearing. Here, you can catch your breath, question your sanity, then ascend the 400-foot, 60-degree grade east side of the rock. While participating in the obligatory gut-check before ascending the cables, one fellow hiker noted that the rock should be called “Half Dumb” instead of “Half Dome,” since you’d have to be half-crazy to do this. (Since Kelly and I have now done this twice, I suppose that makes us fully crazy…)
There is really no way to describe standing on this slope while hanging on to two steel cables. During the trek up, Kelly and I opted not to look down at the valley floor 4000 feet below, and instead, kept our eyes firmly fixed on our feet, while using the cables to pull ourselves up.
At about 1:30, we finally reached the top of Half Dome. We spent a half hour with about 40 other brave folks up top enjoying the views and a nice snack.
Kelly says that “the trip down was scary, sheer terror, terrifying.” In fact, Kelly took so long on the cables, that she created a little bit of a traffic jam. Some people were even going on the outside of the cables to pass her. But all that’s okay, because we both made it down safely. After catching our breath at the clearing at the base, we descended the quarter-mile reverse stair-master to begin our 8-mile journey back to the valley floor. Finally, at about 6:30 PM, we happily hobbled past the trailhead sign where we began the day.
All of today’s pictures can be seen here.
Thursday will be a much more relaxing day. We’re planning a nice drive to the top of Glacier Point, then down to Wawona to look at some big old trees. (By “big,” I mean “the largest living organisms on earth,” and by “old,” I mean “planted before Cleopatra ruled Egypt.”)
I’m not sure if the hotel in Wawona has Internet access, so sadly, this may be our final post for the trip. If so, we’ll update the website when we get home on Saturday.
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