Half Dome
Hike Review
I hiked this trail last year and not much has changed.
What I Learned
I’m not as scared of heights compared to last year. I did great on the subdome as well as the actual dome itself. Exposure therapy really does work!
On the hike up to the half dome, there was a partial eclipse and I got to see it with these special glasses that Darlene had brought. The glasses also worked well when I used them to take a picture of the sun with my camera and phone.
I hike much faster by myself as this hike took about 6 hrs longer than it did last year... but, I had so much more fun with friends. Totally worth the extra time it took and then some.
My injured ankle is slowly getting better and it didn’t hurt the entire time I hiked. I was even able to step down the steps on to my right foot without too much issue (I was careful not to roll it).
Sarah, Darlene, and Louie all hit their personal bests in terms of mileage and elevation gain!
Thanks to Darlene for this picture of me at the end of the hike. I was pretty sleepy near the end.
I had only gotten 2 hrs of sleep (and not good quality either) the night before and on Friday night had gotten 6 short hours. Still, besides being bored to sleep at the top of half dome, I felt great the whole time. On the drive home, I did get sleepy on parts, but got myself out of it with a timely gas station stop or lots and lots of singing.
Darlene let me borrow her BeFree water filter as hers was easier to get to and use. I thought it worked pretty well and the water tasted fine. Though, I still wouldn’t have carried it on a hike like this where I was minimizing space.
Before the trip, Darlene had come over early and I was surprised at how much her day pack weighed, so she emptied her pack and we went over each item. She had good reason to carry each item, but I’m pretty sure that on the hike itself, I carried significantly less weight than everyone else, even though I was carrying the communal first aid kit.
Before the trip, I was thinking about carrying a larger pack so that I could pack my 400mm lens, but I didn’t as I would need a filter for my camera that I didn’t have. I think next time though, it might be fun to shoot a video of the eclipse.
At the end of the hike, we were pretty hungry so we headed to Curry Village, where we had two choices. The pizza deck had a super long line, so we skipped that and went into the Seven Tents Pavilion, a cafeteria like restaurant. The menu was uninspiring, but we ate it anyways. Even with such a huge hike serving as appetite, the food just wasn’t that good. On the plus side, no one got sick!
On the way down, on the boring stretch between Little Yosemite Camp and Half Dome, I slipped and fell on my butt. I was physically fine (there’s a small bone bruise feeling thing on my left elbow), but it snapped my super light hiking pole. I don’t think I’ll be replacing it for the moment, but I do want to pour one out for my little buddy that served me well for the last two years.
I wore my running shorts as normal for these longs hikes and they worked well. I was never overheated and although I was shivering just a bit at the trailhead, I was feeling great once the hike started in earnest.
I was so bored going up the steel cables that I experimented with tying different knots on top of the prusik that was holding me up. I found out that the autoblock worked extremely well , but it was much messier than the prusik, so I didn’t use it multiple times.
Media Consumed
An Immense World
Friends
Darlene, Louie, and Sarah accompanied for this trip. I sent out invitations to about a dozen people and these brave three signed up and did an awesome job hiking and climbing. Louie was probably the most tired one of the trip, as they had less sleep than I did to start and by the end was 100% tired. As usual though, they didn’t complain and was quite a fast hiker. Sarah didn’t prep too much for this hike and was thus probably the most worried—she did great though and never gave up! She also absorbed instruction on tying prusiks quite well and it was good to see her do so well on climbing the dome itself. Darlene was the newest and it was great getting to know her. She was also worried about her hiking abilities, but I thought she did great. It was pretty funny how Darlene, Sarah, and I wore the same REI sun hoodie shirt for the hike without coordinating.
What Happened?
17.7 miles, 14 hrs 45 mins, 5312 ft of ascent
Some friends had asked me about hiking to the top of half dome without permits, and while telling my story from last year, I volunteered to lead them. It led to me planning an event, with Louie, Darlene, and Sarah signing up for the hike. We all met up at my house, then carpooled to Goat Meadow for a quick nap before waking up at 3am and driving to the trailhead.
I was pretty tired, but my larger-than-normal caffeine intake woke me up enough to let me safely drive to the trailhead. From there, we put our backpacks on and started hiking. It seemed like there were a few more people on the trail than I had remembered last year, but that may have been just perception based on my hiking speed. But going slower meant that there were many opportunities to talk to various people who were passing us (and who we some times leap frogged back-and-forth throughout the hike to half dome). There was a nice European sounding dood who had a nice breakfast right at Vernal Falls and a group of Japanese men who were maybe nonplussed at me saying good morning in Japanese after I had stated pleasantries a few times before in English.
A few miles after Little Yosemite Camp, I noticed that the shadows seemed wrong. Which meant that the eclipse was afoot! Darlene handed us our eclipse glasses and we spent a few minutes admiring the view and trying to take pictures with our phones. Then it was back to hiking.
We got to the bottom of half dome at a pretty fast time, but because we arrived with a large crowd ahead of us, we got caught in traffic. It took us about two hours from when we arrived to the top of the dome, and since we probably spent 30 minutes putting on our gear and taking a break, I estimate that we spent 1.5 hrs tied into the steel cables as the crowd slowly made its way up the dome. At first, I was worried about my fear of heights so I didn’t look down, but after a while, I just got bored and started taking pictures. The two dudes behind me were also pretty nice, so we shared some laughs.
At the top, the four of us split up and kinda rested and did our own stuff. After taking pictures, I was feeling sleepy, so I sat and just rested while Louie painted (yes, they are that cool), and Sarah/Darlene recharged themselves. After a while, we headed back down.
The walk back down was definitely quieter than the way up as I think we were both tired and sleepy. I did listen to a good chunk of my audiobook, which was pretty perfect as the fascinating animal facts kept me awake and alert. Near Vernal Falls, the sun set and it got dark pretty fast. But we were pretty close to the end then, and we just kept hiking at a good pace.
We originally were flirting with the idea of staying another night so that we could go climbing the day after, but everyone was pretty beat, so we made the decision to just drive home. The drive back was thankfully uneventful and we made it back right around midnight.
