Climbing Half Dome

Climbing Half Dome was a trip. As far as numbers go, it’s the toughest day hike I’ve done this summer – about 22 miles total, and 4800’ vertical rise. From what people have told me so far this summer, it seemed like a must-do – you hike up past several waterfalls, then on to the dome itself, with the final ascent climbing simply an enormous granite slab that overlooks the park in every direction for miles. However, this also makes it terribly popular with the other hordes of people visiting the park in the summer. But I thought to myself, no problem, I’ll hike it on a weekday, and get up really early to beat whatever crowd there still is. I thought myself mighty clever eating breakfast by the light of the moon and getting into the parking lot of the park at dawn. However, it was a long drive to said lot, and by the time I packed up and walked a few miles to the trailhead, it was already 7:15, and way too late to beat the crowds that had been camping much closer. But I hike pretty quick, and I passed a few hundred people going up (I’m not exaggerating), but it was still a conga line when I got to the cables (photo above). Waiting in the cables line wasn’t as bad as waiting at the DMV, but it was tedious. You take a few steps… you wait for some people who aren’t fit enough for it to struggle on… you take a few steps… you wait for some people to freak out, give up and turn around… and at last you make it to the top, with 100 or so of your closest friends. Ok, so at this point I’m painting a pretty bleak picture, but that isn’t fair. It was a great time and one of the most amazing day hikes I’ve ever done. The waterfalls on the way up and views from the top were insane – standing on the over-vertical edge of the 2,000’? cliff was such a rush. But the crowds were challenging – who likes waiting in line when you’re hiking? Also, so many of the hikers up there were comically unprepared – I saw people with one small water bottle (this is 9-11 hrs of hard summer hiking here), children who couldn’t have been older than seven being dragged along by their parents, and my favorite – flip flops.

I thought that there was going to be a starbucks at the top…

My favorite view of the Yosemite valley area. And below, a mountain lake on a different day hike. Also, an unrelated story I'll throw in here - my camp in the neighboring NF was usually quiet, and I barely saw another person back in there during my 4 nights at that spot. However, sound did travel well through the valley that I was on one side of, and I heard dogs, trucks, etc. in the distance. But the one night, I heard the sounds of some sort of strange rally off in the distance – strains of pop music, short speeches, and escalating group chants could be heard (but none of what they were actually saying). Who knows.