All right I guess I’ll write my final post now since I’ve put it off for a couple days.
Half Dome: Quite the trek. We proudly awoke at 5:30 AM Wednesday morning only to see that about half our campsite was already awake as well. We quickly prepared our things, kissed Jake and his sister goodbye (they were still asleep) and drove up to Glacier Point. We had planned out the hike so that we would go up one way and descend another and take a bus the next morning to get the car. These plans certainly shocked our site-mates who seemed surprised to see we did our research. CLEARLY they underestimated our hiking prowess. We filled up our single liter water bottles and left.
Nice morning. Pretty cool up at Glacier Point as we started our hike. The first part of our hike was mostly downhill so we covered a lot of ground quickly and stopped for a riverside breakfast of bagels and nuts. We cruised up our first elevation gain towards Nevada Falls passing by a father and his two kids, whose ages were probably 7 and 9. “Where you guys headed,” he asked. “Half Dome,” we replied. “Ah yes, us too. See you up there.” And we thought we were so tough.
We made it up to the final ascension at about 11:30 I think? It had been fairly grueling but a really good hike with some awesome views and a lot of shade. We made it to the top of the mini dome going up a bunch of steep stone steps and looked up at the cables getting excited to climb. We decided we couldn’t look at them any more and just had to do it so we went for it.
So there are two cables maybe three feet apart held down by poles that are stuck in the rock (not secured) and there are two-by-fours to step on every five feet-ish (except for the ones that are missing). The ascent is fairly vertical, probably 75 or 80 degrees. We were going up slowly because of the masses of people and suddenly the woman in front of me started panicking and crying that she couldn’t do it because her shoes were slipping. Well she turned around to go down and slipped towards me. Not exactly what I needed—and then somebody dropped a couple water bottles that clattered down over the side falling thousands of feet. We did our best to stay focused and continued up. It took an hour to get to the top. By far the worst part was waiting to move and just standing there on the side of the rock. If we had been moving the whole time it would’ve taken probably fifteen minutes. But no matter, we lived, and relaxed at the top, called people (we got phone service) and eating and drinking (whatever we had left) and taking pictures.
We took our time on the way down, stopping to swim at a river and taking lots of pictures. We still passed many a hiker (including two attractive French-Canadian girls we had been told about the day before by a fellow hiker), keeping up a record-setting pace. 18.2 miles later (the distance of a marathon I believe) we were done, having conquered the mighty Half Dome.
After a stay in Santa Cruz, I hopped on a flight home (which was delayed an hour, thanks for checking beforehand MARSHALL) but it was okay because I actually was on the same flight as a baseball teammate from high school randomly so we caught up. These flying machines are pretty nice…I had plenty of legroom and didn’t worry about my pilot falling asleep at the throttle and even had food and drinks served to me. And they go really fast! One of those babies could probably make it across the country in a couple of days at least.
Rumor has it that Streaks and Pete decided to stay an extra night in Vegas, giving them time to annul their respective marriages it seems. It was tough watching them go, especially in the wrong direction, as Marshall pointed out. How they will make it back east without my tent-setting-up skills or Marshall’s long-batteried iPod I’m still not sure. Take care of them, Howard.
It’s been a long and eventful journey for this journeyman. Did I ever doubt we were going to make it? Yes, often. But finally the country roads have taken me home. Throw a can of chili and a couple dogs on the fire for me.
-Honey Bear
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