We’re back and we did awesome! I’m still a little sore in my calves but that’s about the only damage. Ben, lorelai, and I made it to the top of Half Dome and twjudy made it to the base of subdome.
We plan to go back at some point so Judy can go all the way to the top.
We stayed in Curry Village in the Valley on Thursday night. Our camp site was at Wawona which is 45 minutes away from the starting point of the Half Dome hike, and we didn’t want to do that drive in the dark at 4-frakking-30 AM so we got a cabin for one night on the valley floor.
At 4:30am, all our alarms went off and I’m sure the people in the cabins next to us wanted to kill us cause damn, it was loud. =D We got all packed up and trekked out to the starting point. We hit the trail at around 5:30am.
We parted with Judy at the base of Vernal Falls. The Half Dome hike is really steep in the beginning and at the very end, and Ben, Lorelai and I move a lot faster so Judy told us to go on ahead. This was the last we saw of Judy until 12 hours later.
We were halfway up Vernal Falls when the sun came up.
Check out my hiking wardrobe fashion statement! ^^; So what I discovered during our practice hikes was that I tended to swing between hot (when we were moving) to freezing (as soon as we stopped to take a break) and pulling on and off a sweater or jacket when you have a pack with 2 tons of water in it is really annoying. So my solution was to grab a pair of my legwarmers and turn them into sleeves that I could pull on or off depending on how warm I was. It actually works pretty well…
Lorelai and I also got these ear muffie thingies that just clip onto your ears because both of us get massive headaches when our ears get cold. They look ridiculous but they work!
We hit the top of Vernal Falls and you can’t see Half Dome from this side so I just snapped a shot of the big ass mountain in front of Half Dome.
Then we started up Nevada Falls (I think). I’m a little fuzzy on which falls was which.
We were really good about taking breaks and staying fueled up on food on the way up.
Uh… this is Ben doing his lazy bear imitation. =D
We rounded one of the mountains and caught a glimpse of Half Dome. It still looked ridiculously far away. >.< I think this was about 4 miles in.
Then there was a long flat section… flat is bad. Flat sections mean you have that much more climbing at the end.
We started noticing the thinner up here because we were gasping for air on very mild inclines. After a while though, I guess we adjusted and it wasn’t an issue anymore.
We’re getting closer!
We hit subdome around 11am. Subdome is the smaller dome at the base of Half Dome. It’s a pretty brutal climb. Most of it is rock stairs…
And then the top section of it has no stairs; you just have to climb up the rockface. I was so happy that all of us had sprung for new hiking boots cause it made all the difference in the world. I dunno how the hell people in sneakers were getting up this thing.
We got to the top of Subdome and had a total “Oh !@#$” moment when we saw the cables up Half Dome. Did I mention that all 3 of us are scared of heights?
One quick photo before heading up!
I hear during height of summer weekends, it can take over an hour of waiting just to get onto the cables. o_O We opted to climb a Friday because of that and I’m really glad we did. The damn climb is slow enough.
It’s not required but we all clipped into the cables. Ben and I rigged up make-shift harnesses using his slack lines and Lorelai had her climbing harness. I wasn’t going clip in initially but Judy convinced me it was a good idea and I’m glad she did. Even though I felt fairly secure that I wasn’t going to fall, I was worried that someone else might slip and bump into me. Less than 1/4 of the people on the cables that day were clipped in and a guy died a couple months ago from falling off the cables…
Uh, I only dared to pull out my camera once to snap a quick photo on the way up. =D
Made it to the top!!!
It’s huge up there! And very pretty!
I crawled to the edge of Half Dome and stuck my head out over the edge and snapped a quick photo.
The squirrels on the Half Dome hike are aggressive. They come right up to you and will actually go through your packs looking for food. One of the little suckers tore open our food bag and ran off with one of my avocados!
Taking a break before heading down.
Obligatory kitty-pile photo!
And down we went. UGH.
I found going down backwards was much easier than trying to do it forwards cause then I didn’t have to look at where I was going. =P
Once I got into a groove of going down, it actually went really smoothly and wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
I didn’t take any photos of our trek back down ’cause I was so beat by that point. We made it down to the base of Vernal Falls just as it got dark and 5 minutes later, Judy showed up! We had just missed her on the way down from Half Dome.
We spent the next day just lazing around camp. The most strenuous thing I did was get up every half hour to move my chair out of the sun. =D
And that was Half Dome! We made the 14 miles and 4800 feet climb in about 13 hours.
