yosemite: two

Hiking Half Dome was the plan for the next day. Except, we spontaneously decided to do it in the middle of the night. This was Erin's third time hiking Half Dome, my second time and Detoy's first time. We figured that since Erin and I had gone before, hiking in the dark with no sleep would be a fun adventure. We were hoping to be on the top by sunrise, but also knew that we realistically would probably not be. However, even being at a high elevation for sunrise would still be cool. We went to sleep around 1000pm and woke up to an annoying alarm at 1245am. THREE hours of sleep, which I was not happy about. We grabbed our gear and our food and headed out.

Haha, there is so much to say about our little midnight adventure. First of all, it was PITCH black. We had to walk about a mile to the bottom of the trail and it was completely silent and completely dark. For the beginning of the hike, we were the only ones on the trail and all we could hear was the rushing water running next to us. There were a couple moments when we turned off our [stylish] headlamps and looked up at the stars. To say they were incredible is an understatement. It was beyond beautiful.

Then the fun began. Soon after we started the hike, we lost the trail. Everything looked different in the dark! We wandered off and ended up climbing over huge rocks and fallen trees, which also happened to be RIGHT next to the raging river. We were getting completely soaked with freezing water, while having no idea where we were in the pitch blackness of the night. If you think this sounds dramatic, it was. I insisted on going up higher to get away from the water, even if that meant that we went further away from the trail [which we weren't even on in the first place]. We went higher and Detoy found the trail. We were excited to finally be making some progress uuuuuuuntil we found out that we just made a huge circle. And then my contact randomly fell out. Praise Jesus that I found it.

After making a huge circle, we argued for a couple minutes about whether or not we really did end up back where we started. Yes, we most definitely did and once we hit the trail, we realized that it was a ridiculously OBVIOUS trail. Like I said, everything looks different in the dark. Our detour put us back a little bit and we were also freeeeeezing to death, but happy to be making some progress.

The last couple miles of the hike were definitely the hardest for me. I was slow for the steep ramp and the switchback granite stairs, but the last two miles of hiking up a steady incline really seemed to kill me. Though the sun was comforting to my freezing body, it did start to wear me out and I began feeling completely out of energy. It helps to have small goals. Instead of thinking about being on the top, I made it around the corner. Up the hill. To the shaded rocks. At times it was slow going, but I knew i was going to do it.

When we got to the base of the dome, we had to climb what is called the Granite Staircase. It's a bunch of incredibly steep granite stairs that lead up to the base of the cables. These can be mentally exhausting because they have the potential to be so dangerous. A lot of the granite is layered in loose gravel and one quick slip or one strong wind could leave you falling down the side of the huge boulder. Most likely to your death. But we all made it!

The last leg of the hike were the cables. These go up a steep 400 feet and it takes a lot of strength to pull yourself up. There are wooden planks scattered up the cables to gain footing along the granite dome. It's pretty intimidating to think that your life is literally in your hands because if you let go, you're gone. There's a pile of gloves next to the base of the cables because it's near impossible/very painful to get up the cables without them. I had my own super grippy gloves from Target that were very handy. Erin and Detoy made it up first.

I made it up. Finally. And I was soooo excited to be at the top! There is an amazing 360 degree view. You can see everything and it's exhilarating to be so high up.

We got to the top around 930am, which was CRAZY to me! We hiked 10 miles up to the top of Half Dome before it was even lunchtime. Though getting lost in the dark and being freezing cold for the first part of the trip, I really enjoyed hiking half of it in the middle of the night. It seemed to go by a lot quicker, there were way less people on the cables, and it left a lot of time for error and/or pit stops on the way down.

It was fun to hike down and see everything in the DAYtime. Detoy found where we got lost next to the river and oooooh my goodness. Scary, scary. Seriously, one slip on the mossy rocks could have landed us in the river, where we would have been swiftly swept away. We all decided that we should be on one of those "I Shouldn't Be Alive" shows, for realsies.

I can't even tell you how tired I was at the end of the day. We got back down to the bottom and immediately pulled out our Rainbows to swap our constricting tennis shoes for our comfortable flip-flops. We compared blisters and walked/waddled/limped the last mile back to Curry Village. We celebrated the day by getting pizza and ice cream. When we got back to the campsite, we sat around the fire for a little bit, mostly in silence. The exhaustion of the day outweighed our desire to have any sort of meaningful conversation and we soon resigned ourselves to slumber. Being curled up in a sleeping bag on the ground never felt so good.