Yosemite - Half Dome Hike

After finishing the Lemonade detox, I thought I'd do something super healthy. So my roommates and I went camping and hiking in Yosemite.

We got to our campsite at about 11 PM on Friday night after a long, traffic-filled drive. We pitched our tents with the car's headlights - that was interesting. The next day, another neighbor said he was impressed that we got it done so quickly and efficiently - yay us!

While two of my friends stayed at the campsite for the day, my other roommate and I woke up at 6 am and headed out to Half Dome. I was excited, but kind of scared too. It's a 17 mile roundtrip hike, and it's very steep. We had no idea where we were going, and we got really lost for a while. All you have to do though is go to Curry Village and follow signs to Happy Isles. The trailhead's pretty easy to find from there.

We started out going uphill, and I'm a really fast hiker (my roommate wanted to kill me). It evened out eventually, then went back uphill. Yikes! But it was really beautiful - there was a huge waterfall near the beginning (and end), and the woods along the trail were pretty. The views were amazing towards the end. You can see for miles, and the mountains are ridiculous.

We took the John Muir Trail by accident when it branched off, but I've heard the Vernal Falls Trail via the Mist Trail is the best, so I'll for sure be trying that next time.

Not to sound like a total hippy, but it made me realize how much I love nature. I had some great quiet time and feel like I had a good little reflection on things I've accomplished in 2007 and things I still want to accomplish. Nature will do that to me :)

When we got to the end, it was really scary, but I'm scared of heights so it might not be as bad for other people. We had to go up these giant mountainous step things - all I could think about was going back down, which is way worse for someone scared of heights. The very last thing was the dreaded cables, which were way way way scarier when I actually saw them. It's basically a flat mountain face with a rope ladder up it. No way. I refused. It wasn't worth risking my life. We laid at the top watching other people do it though - it was pretty crazy looking. Someone dropped their water bottle by accident from the top, and it just got dead silent. It clunked all the way down. I know everyone was thinking 'Wow I'm glad that wasn't a body.'

Anyways, we got done in about 8.5 hrs which from what I've heard is pretty ridiculous. We went to the grocery store to get S'mores and wine to reward ourselves. When we got back, our friends didn't believe we had actually hiked Half Dome because we got back so early. After one glass of wine, I was pretty tipsy - scary, but bound to happen after a whole day of intense hiking. We both had to take a power nap after that so that we could get up and hang out.

It was such a great weekend, and we had so much fun! I highly recommend Half Dome, and Yosemite in general. Beware the bears, but if you lock up all of your stuff, you should be fine. One of my friends woke up every hour thinking a bear was around the campsite, but she's just paranoid. We saw a deer get hit and killed by a car too, so be really careful when you're driving through the park!

All around, good times and great memories. I really want to go back soon!