Half Dome Glory!
October 8, 2008
During the weekend of September 27th, a brave and fearless group did the unthinkable! the unimaginable! They hiked Half Dome!!
“Wait…this happened during the weekend of the 27th? It’s friggin October 8th, Heather. Why have you become such a lame and late blogger?”
Alright. I accept the criticism. But at least let me attempt to mount a defense.
First, I moved. Finally! No more creepy-land for me! So I got back from Half Dome glory Sunday night and spent Monday packing (because of course I had packed exactly nada before leaving… Naturally) and on Tuesday the movers came! And then, as if that weren’t enough, on Wednesday I had to go to an ethics and compliance conference all day. See? So busy!
So I thought I’d write this over the weekend but, alas, every time I open my blogging program on my personal computer it freezes. I tried deleting it and re-installing but to no avail. And then to make matters worse, my camera got stolen!! At, ironically enough, Lovefest! So all my Half Dome glory pictures were lost! So I’m writing today because I’ve finally come to the conclusion that no, someone is not going to respond to my craigslist lost and found post. My baby camera is gone. And I just bought that thing in June!!!
The good news is my trusty fellow adventurers took plenty of pictures. And, of course, my trusty flip is still with me.
So now on to the story…
The players. First, let’s introduce them via video (because video makes everything more interesting):
So in words you’ve got:
Eric (who you’ve met before)
Sarah (a friend of mine from way back in the day. [“the day” being junior high])
Sam (Eric’s friend. They met while backpacking in Alaska together with NOLS)
Sean (A fellow Googler who I met for the first time while getting in his car to drive up to Yosemite. Basically I sent an email out to the SF2G list saying that our campsite could hold two more and, if anyone wanted to come along for guts and glory, they were more than welcome. Sean was game and so was…)
Jacob (the second Googler to respond. I met him for the first time the day before we left while biking to work)
Me (but of course)
So how’d it go?
Well first off, it took us about forever to get there. Why? Because we got lost, oh, conservatively, about a zillion times. Jacob is a software engineer. Doesn’t that mean he should be good at directions?! Well we found out that’s just not true. Well it’s not true that he’s no good at navigating… I still contend that as a software engineer he should be. 
It’s entirely possible we drove at least 50 completely unnecessary miles. Now I didn’t really care but we all learned that Sarah gets pretty car sick pretty easily. And the idea of her puking all over Sean’s lovely car was sort of a figure-out-how-to-get-there-quickly motivating factor.
But I’m happy to report no throwing up occurred.
So after getting lost, listening to the presidential debate while eating dinner while driving, and lots of over-shares, we made our way to Tuolumne meadows. Eric and Sam, who drove up from LA (and were expecting us to arrive before them by a few hours), were already there.
At that point we went straight to bed (I think it was already passed 11pm…and the idea is to start Half Dome ridiculously early).
Well here’s some advice for future badass hikers. Tuolumne meadows is really not a good choice for campsite location. I didn’t really understand this ahead of time and couldn’t have prevented our going there anyway because:
1. I’ve only been to Yosemite twice and neither time did I actually camp there – so I don’t have a mental map of where everything is.
2. I’m told that Tuolumne was the last open camp area by the time we made reservations.
But anyway, the point is this: Tuolumne is about an hour drive away from “the valley” – which is where you start the half dome hike. So if you want to, say, start the hike at 6, you’ve got to leave the campsite a little before 5 – which means you’re eating nasty oatmeal at like 4:30.
And that’s going to be a big “no”
So instead we opted for the late start variety. And by that I mean we probably started hiking about 9:30.
Pretty much right away we knew we were going to have a problem. Sarah’s backpack weighed a significant portion of her total bodyweight and about five minutes in she said something like “Whoa. This backpack is killing me!!”
At that point I looked at Eric and gave him the “this means problems” look.
But no matter, we forged on.
Basically there were a LOT of stairs, a LOT of dirt particles in my face, a LOT of sour gummy octopi (my hiking snack of choice), and a LOT of me wanting to steal everyone else’s water.
Which brings me to another point. I, when hiking, prefer to drink an insane amount of water. I brought two bottles, each about 32 oz (so that’s 8 8oz glasses for those of you keeping track) and I could have easily finished them off by lunch (which was at about 11:45). Instead, I finished them near the top and decided to take water from dear old Eric. He of course is used to this. When we bike together I’m fairly confident he brings that second bottle specifically because he wants to make sure he gets at least one bottle for himself.
[*side story* When I was young I was, let’s just say, quite plump. When I’d say something to my mom about this her response was always, “Oh, Heather. If there were a nuclear explosion and we were in some sort of food-barren post-apocalyptic setting, you’d outlive everyone! You’re just built hearty because you’re built to last!”
Beyond thinking this didn’t really make me feel any better, mainly because I couldn’t convince myself that the chances of that happening were high enough to make my then-current suffering worth it, I now know that in reality she was wrong! Even if I could live on very little food for a long period of time, I sure as hell would die of dehydration long before everyone else! So I totally lose!]
So back to half dome… the hiking continued. And then continued some more. Oh and then some more after that.
So that was exciting (in a masochistic way) – plus I really enjoyed seeing the happy proud squirrels running around.
The bad news was that we were hearing the line to go up the cables was two hours!! And, considering we started really late, that would mean not getting back until well after sunset. This concerned me because doing the Vernal fall stairs in the dark (not everyone had lights with them) is just plain dangerous.
So we had a solution. We decided to create a new top of half dome and claim our victory there. See our explanation…
So after that we hauled it down to the valley, barely breaking at all.
One thing I distinctly remember was fantasying about the water fountain at the base of Vernal Falls. We were out of water early on the descent and all I could think about was how much water I was going to drink. Like frakin gallons of water. I wanted to swim in a sea of drinking fountain water, sprout gills, and just gulp and whatever-gills-do-to-water all the water in existence.
And upon arrival at said water fountain I pretty much did exactly that. I think I drank somewhere along the lines of eight to ten glasses of water in about two minutes. Felt a bit sick afterwards, but oh it was worth it.
At the end we ended up eating at the buffet in Curry Village because the pizza line was out of control. No matter – it was delicious.
After that we got s’more stuff (I made s’more eating a requirement), drank a lot of alcohol, and had fun hanging out around the campfire.
The next day we got up, got some food (sadly by the time we got there breakfast was over!), and made the long and significantly less chit-chatty drive back.
So overall it was an intense and awesome experience. It was great to meet some fellow Googlers and it was great to finally get out for some outdoorsy goodness.
I can’t wait for our next trip!
…though I am more than willing to wait for the next I-can’t-properly-bend-my-legs-for-four-days experience.
Oh and thanks to Sean and Sarah for their photos!
Comments
2 Responses to “Half Dome Glory!”
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That looks awesome, Heather! But 32 oz is actually 4 8-oz portions, not 8 (8 * 8 = 64 oz). This may help explain why your water only lasted you half as long as you intended.
I love your videos.
Your 3D joke was hilarious. +5