The last three days we have been in Yosemite. On the first day we went in to
Mariposa Grove to see the Giant Sequoia’s (photo #1). We hiked around that afternoon and saw some of the south side of the park. On the second day I went into the park solo since Kim was battling a stomach bug. I traveled to the valley floor and Glacier Point and the views were spectacular – (see photo #2 of Half Dome). On day 3 I decided to take the adventure up a notch and climb to the top of Half Dome – 17 miles round trip ascending 4,800 ft. I left our cottage about 5am since it was about 1.5 hour drive to the
trailhead (Yosemite is huge). For the first couple miles up the trail I
didn’t see many fellow hikers which freaked me out since they post warnings about the black bears every 10 feet. I started thinking “are bears morning hunters….”. I also
inadvertently picked the horse trail which was littered with fresh “trail apples”. Once I finally caught up with a few others headed up the trail I felt a lot better. The climb up was tough, but I felt good until I got to the last part of the ascent. The last 500-600ft is a very inverted section straight up the top of half dome which has cables built into the rock to allow you to make the ascent (see photo #3). I got about half way up the cables and I started second guessing whether I could make it back down. I think that since everyone coming down looked sick to their stomach trying to navigate the steep, slippery rock it made me a bit nervous. At that point I was also pretty spent so I decided to turn back about 300 ft from the summit. It was a little disappointing, but the views were still worth the trek (photo #4). Even though we spent three full days in this incredible place we only saw a fraction of the park. It would take weeks to explore. One note - luckily, we did not encounter any of the wildfires while in Yosemite. I hope they get that blaze contained because Yosemite is truly one of the treasures of the US.
The last three days we have been in Yosemite. On the first day we went in to Mariposa Grove to see the Giant Sequoia’s (photo #1). We hiked around that afternoon and saw some of the south side of the park. On the second day I went into the park solo since Kim was battling a stomach bug. I traveled to the valley floor and Glacier Point and the views were spectacular – (see photo #2 of Half Dome). On day 3 I decided to take the adventure up a notch and climb to the top of Half Dome – 17 miles round trip ascending 4,800 ft. I left our cottage about 5am since it was about 1.5 hour drive to the trailhead (Yosemite is huge). For the first couple miles up the trail I didn’t see many fellow hikers which freaked me out since they post warnings about the black bears every 10 feet. I started thinking “are bears morning hunters….”. I also inadvertently picked the horse trail which was littered with fresh “trail apples”. Once I finally caught up with a few others headed up the trail I felt a lot better. The climb up was tough, but I felt good until I got to the last part of the ascent. The last 500-600ft is a very inverted section straight up the top of half dome which has cables built into the rock to allow you to make the ascent (see photo #3). I got about half way up the cables and I started second guessing whether I could make it back down. I think that since everyone coming down looked sick to their stomach trying to navigate the steep, slippery rock it made me a bit nervous. At that point I was also pretty spent so I decided to turn back about 300 ft from the summit. It was a little disappointing, but the views were still worth the trek (photo #4). Even though we spent three full days in this incredible place we only saw a fraction of the park. It would take weeks to explore. One note - luckily, we did not encounter any of the wildfires while in Yosemite. I hope they get that blaze contained because Yosemite is truly one of the treasures of the US.
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