Yosemite Day 3: The Half Dome
Wednesday morning, we meant to get up super early but ended up started our hike to the Half Dome at roughly 6:30am. This was quite the adventure for us both. It all began near Camp Curry, starting on the Mist Trail, where we worked our way on what would be about 9 miles one-way and passed a few horses delivering stock to camp on the way.
Further up the trail, we passed Nevada Falls and eventually to the top of it. Excuse my video as I was incorrect with which waterfall we were on top of. This was the half way point for us, so we took a little break to eat lunch before continuing our journey.
As we got closer and closer to the Half Dome, of our two packs that we carried for our trek, we dumped our huge backpack 2 miles away so not to carry it all the way to the top. Just before the sub-dome, there’s a flight of very narrow stone steps that you have to continuously move upward to get to the other side. Totally killed me. I loathe going up stairs/steps.
As soon as we got up the sub-dome and the Half Dome was in clear sight, I literally looked at Captain America and said, “Are we INSANE?!?” I had only seen photos and a very deceiving video of Half Dome prior to doing this hike, and in person, that thing looked absolutely sketchy in an extremely frightening way. A few people, who have done this hike before had reassured us both that it’s “a piece of cake” or “it’s so easy, you don’t need ropes or clips.” Either those people were massively messing with us, or they sincerely feel like this hike up the dome is easy as pie.
The thing with Captain America and me is that we both do lots of crazy and adventurous things (more so him than me). I mean, for fuck’s sake, I climbed a mountain with the guy. But at least when we did that, I was attached to a rope and felt relatively safe. I put some gloves on, whereas he taped his hands up, thinking that would be enough. As we began our climb only using the cables attached to the huge rock, we made it half way up, when Cap says to me, “Wanna go back down now?” By this point, I hadn’t even looked down or to either side of me but rather focused on looking on to continue upward. I remember looking up and noticing that the trail ahead started looking more and more like a 90 degree vertical incline the further we moved. As soon as he said those magic words, I finally turned my head to look behind me and didn’t hesitate at all – “Yeah, let’s go back down.”
It was slightly slippery on our descent, and I asked him as we moved down, “Are you sure you don’t wanna go all the way to the top?” He quickly replied, “I came. I saw. I conquered. I’m good.” Fortunately, he made that smart decision because after seeing that vertical climb we were supposed to do next, I don’t think I would have wanted to come back down the way we came up. I’m pretty sure I’d have thrown a fit at the top and request that a helicopter come get me. Anything. That thing did not feel safe without carabiners and rope.
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On the way back, we stopped at the Merced River to cool off. Well, Cap did. I just sat nearby and made sandwiches.
The entire hike ended up being 18 miles round trip and took us 12 hours roughly to complete. We had about less than a mile left to go before we reached camp again, and I started feeling nauseous all the while battling a horrendous headache for the last couple of miles. As soon as we hit civilization again, my head began to spin as I dizzily sat down. I puked my guts out shortly thereafter. A job well done, I suppose. Or just simply exhaustion, slight over-exertion and perhaps some mild altitude sickness.
After all was said and done, we passed out in Scout. We had quite the excursion. For anyone, who is thinking about hiking Half Dome ever, may I suggest bringing proper climbing gear such as rope and carabiners to clip yourself into the cables. While they advise you should be an experienced hiker to climb up there, they really also need to promote extra safety. Following that day hike, I researched accidents on the Half Dome. They happen, and that makes me relieved that we stopped when we did. It’s one of – if not the – most strenuous hikes in Yosemite. You have to have a permit to hike Half Dome, and only 300 permits per day are issued. As much as I hate going up stairs, I would have rather climbed those steps to the sub-dome a 100 times than climb the Half Dome without rope.