In the meantime, we're back in the "real world" and getting settled in our new place. Karl has been pretty busy with school lately but has been getting to know some other couples that are new to the area. One of his new friends invited us to go to Yosemite this weekend and climb Half Dome with him & his girlfriend. Karl and I have lived here over three years and have yet to go to Yosemite so we were excited to finally go! Getting camping reservations for the park is extremely difficult and they open them up online each month and are completely booked in a matter of minutes. Our plan for the trip was to leave Friday after they got out of school around 2 and stay in a hotel in a town right outside of the park. The park's parking lot was an estimated 15 minute drive from the hotel and it would be about a 30 minute walk to the trail head from there.
Half Dome in all its glory. My first thought: How are we going to get up that!?
I started reading more about the hike and what we should bring, etc and learned it was one of the most intense hikes in the park and round trip usually takes about 12 hours with a total of 16 miles of hiking! I had heard of a couple of friends who have done the hike so I thought- we can do it! This is not to say I was a tad hesitant as we've definitely heard of people falling to their death on this hike. (I think overall there have been around 5 deaths and supposedly these were people doing really stupid things such as the hike in the rain, hiking outside the cables, etc.)
Snow on the ground!
The drive out of town on Friday afternoon was pretty stressful since Bay area traffic begins at about noon on Fridays. It took about 4 hours from our front door to the hotel. We stopped at this awesome hole in the wall diner for dinner and all pigged out in preparation for our calorie-scorching- 12 hour hike the next day. It was fun to have a guilt free dinner of burgers, fries and onion rings!
We were all putting off talking about the plan for the next morning and what time exactly this entailed us getting to the trail head. We finally decided to leave the hotel at 5 am and be at the trail head by 6am. We didn't want to be hiking back in the dark at all and sunset was around 7pm these days. We were guessing we could do the entire hike in under 12 hours and possibly even 10. We packed our back packs that night and made sure we had tons of water, some cliff bars, trail mix, sunscreen, etc. We dressed in layers we could peel off as we needed.
first view of the cables and tiny people climbing up
Saturday morning's wake up call at 4:45am wasn't too bad since we had all gone to bed close to 10pm. The guys were joking that was more sleep than they got on some school days after staying up reading all night. It was early. We drove into the park and had a 3/4 mile hike to the trail head- in the pitch dark. Karl was thrilled to use our head lamps to light the way!
The weather turned out to be absolutely perfect- highs in the mid 70's at the warmest and upper 30's at the coldest. I never took off my track pants. The hike was overall pretty intense. We gained a total of 4800 feet in elevation to the top of Half Dome which is 8800 feet. What this meant for the 5 or so hours up to the base of Half Dome was it was all up hill. The hike up to the base itself is a deterrent for most people. The trail was clean and very well kept up. There was a slight threat of bears along the way but there was so much commotion with hikers, etc I doubt they ever come close to the trail. There were two gorgeous waterfalls pouring down these cliffs ending in emerald colored pools of water. Spring is supposed to be incredible in the park with all the waterfalls at their peak and flowers filling all the meadows. The only thing I can compare the hike up to would be doing the stairmaster for close to 5 hours. INTENSE. We stopped to eat a granola bar once and were drinking out of our camelbacks the whole time. We made it to the base of Half Dome around 10:45am. The final climb up to the base was the most intense and hardest in my opinion. It is essentially sheets of granite rock at a pretty steep incline, with nothing to hold on to.
We did it! View from the top.
Approaching Half Dome was somewhat intimidating. It is literally a granite cliff wall with 2 steel cables hanging down from the top. Almost completely vertical. Karl's friend's girlfriend chickened out and didn't even come any closer to check out the cables. I decided to at least check it out a little closer up to see if I'd freak out. It still looked just a vertical up close but I decided to give it a shot. We had brought gloves to get a better grip on the cables. I figured this was pretty important, since we weren't harnessed in, and our grip was all we had. One slip and you're a goner. The cables are about 2-3 feet apart and anchored in by poles about every 5 feet up. There are tiny wooden planks placed every 5 feet as well. I was pretty nervous at first but got in my groove and just focused like crazy on the next plank I could put my feet on. Essentially, this climb is 100% upper body strength. You have to be able to pull yourself up the wall since it is almost completely vertical. While your legs obviously help some, it's mainly your arms pulling your entire body weight up . My shoes would barely be on the wooden plank, about 2 inches wide, for a 2 second rest and then it was time to go again. Karl was behind me and a guy who had done the hike a hundred times was in front. They both encouraged me the whole time and helped me focus and take it one step at a time. The granite in between the planks is obviously pretty worn and slippery from all the hikers that have made the trek. We had our hiking boots on and I was just praying the whole time they would grip and not slip. At this time of day (around 11am) there were other people on the cables but it wasn't completely packed. As if dangling from this cliff wall wasn't scary enough, there were people coming down at the same time! So, we would have to carefully tip toe over on our 2 inch wooden plank and hold on for DEAR life as they squished past us, sharing the plank as they descended. That part was nerve racking for me. You never look behind you or down, obviously. I just focused on the guys shoes in front of me and getting to the next plank. We finally made it to the top! It felt amazing to say I did it and my strength alone was what got me up there!
the guys out on the "diving board" at the top of Half Dome
The top is actually huge. Think a huge somewhat flat, rocky football field. The 360" view was absolutely incredible and I can say now- definitely worth the scary climb. Only the strongest survive and make it to this point so I felt accomplished for sure and was very proud of myself for not letting fear get in the way. We sat down and enjoyed some trail mix and lots of water as we took in the views. We had views of the park down below, tiny streams, meadows, streams of waterfalls coming down other cliffs,etc. Our photos almost don't do it justice. I tried to show perspective in my pictures of how enormous these granite mountains surrounding us were. Karl and his friend just had to go step out on the "diving board." It is essentially a thin rock plate dangling over the cliff. I guess they were pretty sure it wasn't going to tilt or shift as they posed for pictures. We spent an hour or so on top taking pictures, walking around and taking in all the views. Then, I started getting nervous thinking, I bet going DOWN is going to be even scarier! When we descend we stare out and down the whole time so I can't forget how high up we were and how vertical this cliff wall really is. EEEK!
What a view!
Slow and steady and again, just focusing on the little wooden planks on the way down, got us down. By this time the entire cables were jammed with people. I took it one plank at a time and got down. What a sense of accomplishment- I did it!We took more photos before we started our descent. There was actually SNOW on the ground near the base of Half Dome. It snowed up there last Monday and was still there! The cables are seasonal and were coming down today- Sunday. We were very happy to have gotten up there and even happier we started the hike alot earlier than most people.
We did it!
We were physically exhausted by this point and still had about 4 hours of hiking out. Going down hill is almost more painful than climbing up! My shins started killing me and my knees were slowly giving out. By the end of the trek I was hobbling and my left knee just couldn't take another step. It was very interesting to see how our bodies held up after 10 1/2 hours of straight hiking. My hips and knees were the first to start hurting. We got back to the car in exactly 10 hours and 35 minutes from when we started. We were happy to have made it back in less than the recommended 12 hours! Whoo hoo! Go us! We peeled off our boots and socks and couldn't move. Recap: 10 hours and 35 minutes of straight hiking. 17.5 miles. 4800 feet elevation gained.
The drive home felt VERY long and I started having cramps right way. We were too tired to even eat dinner and passed out the second we hit our bed. Today, I can't walk and it feels like I've been in a major car wreck. My knees are barely working and my arms hurt just typing this. All that and it was TOTALLY WORTH IT! We can't to hop in our hot tub tonight.
(View all of our pictures of Yosemite here)
