Half Dome

With all the cliffs, boulders, and rocks around, not only Bryce, an experienced rock climber, but even I was itching a little to get a harness on and try climbing some. Yosemite is like heaven for rock climbers. There are granite cliffs and domes all over the place.

Bryce didn't bring all of his climbing gear, just 2 harnesses and some gloves for one thing we wanted to do: climb to the top of Half Dome. (NOT rock climb the face, but hike to the back side and then climb up the backside of the dome)

We saved a whole day for this feat. People were telling us it would be a 12 hour ordeal, and we would go about 19 miles. For the first 8 miles, it is ALL uphill (except for maybe one mile). We hiked up and past 2 waterfalls then up the mountain to almost the top.






The last 400 feet or so is straight granite rock, and you have to climb up holding on to cables to get to the top. I think it was at least a 60 degree angle of rock that we were climbing. (The last bit of the climb is over a mini dome full of huge steps in the granite, and then the actual Half Dome with cables.) We asked a guy at the visitor center if we needed our harnesses and he said that most people don't use them, so we left them in the car.




We read carefully the information about Half Dome off of the website we liked. It really spelled everything out that we needed to know about the hike.


(photo from yosemitehikes.com)

I am not exaggerating. It was one, if not THE, scariest thing I have ever done in my life. In 2007, 3 people died on these cables, losing their footing and falling off the cliff. It was pretty ridiculous. If you slipped and your grip on the cables wasn't strong enough, you were a goner.

I was already in quite a bit of pain after going uphill for miles, my heart was thumping, I was trying to catch my breath, and I was slowing down. When we got to the cables, Bryce took one look at them and said, "We're not going. That's crazy. Way too dangerous and exposed. I didn't know it would be like this." I looked at him and said, "I did NOT come all this way to stop here. We are going to do this." I may have sounded bold, but I was so scared as we put on our gloves that I couldn't get rid of the huge lump in my throat on the verge of tears.

It was tough. If you weren't already tired from hiking that far, you were exhausted using all your arm and shoulder strength holding yourself on the rock with the cables FOR DEAR LIFE. Pictures do not do it justice. We were pretty surprised once we got there and actually saw it in person.

BUT WE DID IT. We got to the top and it felt like we just finished a huge race together. It was beautiful and crazy at the same time.




We found a little friend on top: a marmot!