Yosemite Trip Part 2: The Hike

Last week Ed and I went to Yosemite to hike up Half Dome. It was a perfect day - clear but not too hot. We got on the trail at 8:07am and got back to our car around 6:30pm. We walked a total of 15 miles and climbed up 5000 vertical feet. It was hard, but not quite as bad as I was anticipating (I was expecting it to be pretty brutal). The first few miles were pretty steep and there were spectacular views along the trail. We took the first picture of Nevada Falls below from the John Muir trail on the way down and in the second one you can see the falls through the trees from the Mist Trail, which we took on the way up.





After four hours of hiking, we got to the dome part of Half Dome. The final part of the ascent looks like this:



You have to hold onto the cables to climb up. You can see the little line of people going up in the picture (it wasn't as scary as it looks in this picture, but it was really hard). (I didn't take the picture above. It came from Kenton Lee's Hiking Page.)

From the top, you could stand in one place and see a 270 degree view of Yosemite Valley and the surrounding area. The valley floor is 5,000 feet down.



This 30-second video pans 180 degrees across the view from the top: Half Dome View (I just learned how to upload videos to YouTube.)

After lounging around on top for an hour, we headed back down. Negotiating the cables on the way down turned out to be pretty easy - you could just hold onto them to steady yourself and sort of run down sideways from post to post (we were wearing heavy gloves). There were a few people trying to hold onto the cables and walk down backwards - very slowly - because they were afraid to face forward and look down. It was pretty steep, but I didn't really get the feeling that I was in danger of falling .

The hike down was much more pleasant than the hike up and we made it back to the car before dark and without any major mishaps. If you haven't been to Yosemite and you ever get the chance, you should definitely go. There is lots to do besides hiking and the views really are spectacular.