Monday, August 24, 2009

Adventures in Hiking: Half Dome

I am a novice hiker. I do about eight miles on average each hike and I find that to be more than enough challenge and fun for me. Last summer was my summer of hiking. It was epic and unforgettable. However, this year with so much moving and travel my hiking has gone by the way side for adventures of a different kind. There was one hike that toped my mile list last summer; it was 11 miles of beauty. Legging Half Dome at 16 plus miles puts them all to shame.

To start, the drive was four hours to the hike itself. We all met at 8pm, drove into the night, and started the epic hike at midnight after joining some fellow hikers. The moon being just past full meaning we could go without using our head lamps for much of the way. This was part of the beauty I was looking for. Seeing a mountain landscape by the light of the moon is hauntingly beautiful. The full moon also meant our little party of seven was joined at the trail head by over 25 more eager hikers. By the end of the night we will have seen more than 50 hikers populating the trail and peppering it with their bobbing head lamps above and below.

The plan was to make it to the top before sunrise and have a breakfast befitting such an epic struggle as the sun peaked over the valley. I was by far the slowest in the group, but that did not matter much after the first two gruelling miles of pavement (yes, the first leg of the trail was paved) up to The Stairs. Much like Gollum leading the hobbits into Mordor we climbed huge carved chunks of blasted rock made into the steepest stir way I have ever experienced. By this time it was just Tim and I, the others having gone ahead long ago. The beauty of the Mist Trail is in the falls that almost constantly soak the stairs in a fine mist. With the light of the moon on the huge gulf below and the sound of the water rushing by it was the experience of a life time.

After the stairs was a long stretch of flat sand with a slow moving stretch of river next to it and then more steep up. By this time I was no longer paying attention to my surroundings. The temperature was clod enough for a jacket, but too hot to hike in. The last two miles were the hardest thing I have ever done. I have hiked one 14ner (that's a mountain over 14,000 feet high) and this was much more of a struggle. Every step was the greatest effort and I did not want to stop till we got to the Cable Route. I knew I would not get to the top when told what the Cable Route was. You see I am afraid of heights, but I was going to get as close as possible.

I made it to my summit at 6:00am. It was just 3/4 of a mile from the top, but the 3/4 of a mile that was strait up. I laid on my rock, had a small snack with Tim and sent him off to the Cable Route. I took sunrise photos of the valley below and slept for almost two and a half hours laying on my pack, bundled into my coat and gloves as the sun warmed everything it touched. It was glorious. The guys came back down and we cooked breakfast, ate, rested, and talked of the beauty surrounding us. Instant coffee never tasted so good.

Coming back down we were four once again and played on the rocks, looked at the landscape in the morning light and chatted. We stopped by the over look to the falls and I rinsed my face and neck in the icy cold water as a rock squirrel tried to eat Tim's pack for breakfast leftovers. Seeing the trail in the light of day is like hiking a different trail altogether. The world opens wide and you can see now what you only heard before.

We got back to the car exhausted, dirty, hot, and triumphant. We stopped at a roadside diner and had a great meal of burgers and milk shakes. The drive home was long, but quite as the passengers were dozing. Again coffee never tasted so good. I pulled Andrew's car in front of his place and Tim and I packed up our car, said our good bye's and drove home to much deserved showers. All told it was 24 hours of adventure and thought at some points I struggled it was worth every step.

2 comments:

Angela said...

You are more than a novice hiker if you average 8 miles. A novice would average about 5. I am dying at 3, but I'm a wuss.

sprezzatura said...

Well, when compared to the others who are crazy good I'm just, not bad.