Bryn and I made our first trip to Yosemite this weekend, and summit-ed Half Dome with a group of 16 friends. At over 8800 ft in elevation, Half Dome is the centerpiece of Yosemite National Park. It is a 17 mile round trip hike, with 4800 ft in elevation gain — a serious endeavor even for an “experienced woodsman” like me. The kicker? We started at midnight to reach the summit in time for sunrise.
The group looks happy and ready to go, even with no sleep.
So we climbed and climbed and climbed. Because of the full mooon, we didn’t even need headlamps for much of the trek. And there were plenty of other crazies on the trail so we didn’t encounter any bears.
The final ascent is an almost sheer granite face that would be impassible without technical rock climbing gear. Thankfully the forest service has bolted a number of steel cables and 2×4′s into the rock to allow access to the summit. This is what it looked like when we showed up, around 6am:
We made our way up the cables and made the summit just before sunrise. It was beautiful, with amazing dawn-views of the entire park. We took a few victory shots and cheered with the rest of the crowd up there when the sun first peaked over the horizon.
Woohoo, the sun!
The way down sucked way more. It was a serious slog, now operating on 24+ hrs without sleep and developing some major blisters on my feet. Here’s a better (daylight) view the summit face, with people climbing the cables:
Very proud of Bryn who made it the whole way like a champ. I think this smile says it all:
We saw some cool waterfalls on the way down, but none that really compared with Iguazu.
It was noon when we finally got back to the cars — tired, hurty, and smelly, but mission accomplished!
Back at the campsite, there was a cold river just waiting to be jumped in.
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