Half Dome

I first learned about Yosemite National Park and Half Dome in 1993. My sister and brother-in-law had visited the park and were showing us her pictures. She had told me Half Dome was the largest rock in the world (note: I cannot find the reference anywhere on the web), and people rock climbed up the Northwest Face in days to get to the top. The physical abilities required to rock climbed that far was clearly beyond me. The top of Half Dome was like the top of Mount Everest: it exist, but not somewhere I would likely reach in my life time.

Then, a few year ago, while I was training to run half marathon, someone told me about hiking to the top of Half Dome. I was intrigued, but due to injuries, work commitment and other reasons, I never made the trip.

Early this summer, A mentioned on Facebook he was planning to do hiking. I talked him and his friend D into doing Half Dome. We had been hiking 10-12 miles on most Saturday for 2 months in preparation.

Our first set back on this trip came on Wednesday before the hike. During a "controlled" burn, Yosemite Park officials started what is now known as the Big Meadow fire. Highway 120 into the Park was closed as a result. Why is this a set back? Well, the hotel we booked, Yosemite Westgate Lodge, is located near the Highway 120 entrance into Yosemite, in Groveland, CA. This is to facilitate an early start to the hike. When we heard about the road closure, it was already too late to cancel our room. After some debate, we decided to continue staying in Groveland, but take a 3 hour detour to go into Yosemite National Park.

Big Meadow Fire map, displayed outside Groveland Firehouse

After a leisure drive to Groveland, we checked into our hotel, got updated on the fire situation, ate an early dinner and went to bed at 9pm. But all there of us: A, D and me, are not early sleepers to begin with, and the anxiety of hiking Half Dome did not help. I did not fall asleep till 1am. D said later he did not fall asleep till 2am.

I woke up at 4:20am. Surprised, I checked my cell phone for the time again. We had asked for a wake up call at 4am, but the hotel did not call us! We quickly got ready and hit the road at 5:00am.

We decided to follow the recommended detour of taking junction 132 to Hwy 49 to Hwy 140 and enter Yosemite through the entrance near the town of El Portal. However, we were misled by the map posted outside Groveland fire station.

Misleading map, displayed outside Groveland Firehouse. You are here on the map is not the Groveland Firehouse!

With all these delays, we did not enter Yosemite Valley till 8am. We quickly parked our car, and hiked 1/4 mile to the Happy Isle trail head. From the trail head, we hiked along Mist Trail. The 1-1.5 mile was a bit of an up hill climb. The roads are paved, so there is no need to trail find and the scenery was great. We crossed a bridge where we caught our first glimpse of Vernal falls. From the bridge, the trail starts becoming more wild. The paved roads disappear and we started walking on dirt path. The trails have lots of rocks embedded in the path, which made the walking rather tiring.

Trail head warning

After another 1/2 a mile, we started seeing Vernal Falls up close and personal. In late August, Vernal Falls have much less flow. Various websites suggested bringing along a poncho for this stretch of the hike, which I did. But there was no spray from the water fall , so I did not use the poncho.

Vernal Falls in late August

As we continue further on this trail, it become steeper. Steps are cut into the rocks to and hand rails are provided along some especially narrow path. Then the trail open up and we reach the top of Vernal falls. The body of water that feeds into Vernal fall is Emerald Pond. It looks really calm, and somewhat greenish when we were there.

From Emerald Pond, we followed Mist Trail to Nevada Falls. Again, these hikes were mostly on granite steps since the trail is fairly steep. Nevada Falls have more flow compare to Vernal falls, but we were spared any spray from Nevada Falls as well.

Nevada Falls in late August

We reached the junction of Mist trail and John Muir Trail at about 11:30am. Here we debated if we should go further. The mile marker read "Half Dome 4.5 miles". We figured in another 2 hours, we would reach the top of Half Dome and therefore decided to push on. We badly under-estimate how long the rest of the hike up would take.

The next stretch of the hike was the most relax. We walked along Merced River in Little Yosemite Valley. The trail is flat and the footing is mostly sand. After about 1.5 miles, the flat section ended and we started climbing again.

Here we were starting to feel tired. We start to meet people coming down from Half Dome and we would randomly asked them how much further we had to go. It was not encouraging. It was going to be 3 more miles, but would probably take us another 2 hours.

Another 45mins hiking brought us to the last mile maker "Half Dome 2 miles".



Walking another 45mines, we finally reached were at the foot of the granite dome. A and I spotted people going up the cable, but also saw people going up a lower rock structure without cable. This lower rock structure was quite steep! This was our first introduction to Sub Dome.

In preparation to hike Half Dome, I had attended Mr Half Dome's talk at REI. He had mentioned the most dangerous part of the hike were not the infamous cables on Half Dome, but Sub Dome. I was skeptical then, but now I understand why he had said that.

Sub Dome looking down

Steps were also cut into the Sub Dome rock, but the trail is very exposed. As such, our progress was more measured. After hiking Sub Dome, there was a small drop in the trail into a narrow ridge where we met the cables.

"The Cables"

The cables are probably the most talked about feature on the Half Dome hike. Looking from the bottom up, the climb up Half Dome does look quite intimidating. The rock is steep and the exposure is large. I had no doubt if a person fell from the cable, he/she would die. We were hiking Half Dome late in the season, so the cable was not crowded at all.

People I talked to always reassured me the cables are not that difficult. I had a different experience when I climbed the first half of the way. It was very tiring and I stood on each wood planks to rest, before moving to the next plank. Fear probably played a big role as I had never climbed something so steep without harness. (I later learned that part of the route is Class 3, so ropes were optional).

I had made the cables more difficult by using the wrong technique. I was pulling myself up the cables with my hands and it was very tiring. Half way up the cables, it strike me I should be leaning more towards the rock and use more of my feet to walk up Half Dome. While parts of the rock was slippery, for the most part, I had good traction and was able to walk up the rock and used the cable for guiding/security only. I had done rock climbing and should have applied knowledge learned there faster:(

At 2pm, we reached the top. D was tentative at the base of the cable, but A and I encouraged him to do it. When he reached the top of the cable though, he didn't feel like moving at all. He sat near the cables and rested while A and I walked around the top of Half Dome.

I did the classic "Diving Board", took panoramic pictures, paying special attention to the smoke from Big Meadow fire. A ate tamarind rice as celebration while I took a short nap.

Smoke from Big Meadow fire. I never smell smoke on the hike, except when I was breathing hard on the cable.

Diving board

At 3:15pm, we decided to head down. In late August, night falls earlier and I did not want to hike down sub dome in the dark.

Knowing how exposed the cables were, I descended them by facing the rock while climbing down. Using the same rock climbing technique, I was able to moved down fairly quickly, though the footing coming down was a little worst than going up.

Another group of hikers were climbing up the cables when we were descending. The sky had began to darken. I hoped they had a short stay atop Half Dome, else they will need to hike down sub dome in the dark.

The hike down sub dome turns out to be easier than I had imagined. While we moved carefully, it was not as scary as I had initially thought.

After sub dome, we moved at a brisk pace, trying to cover as much ground as possible before dark. Fatigue began to set in. I had finished all my Gatorade and began to worried I didn't carry enough water. Also, stepping on the rock all day on the trail was beginning to take its toll. I was avoiding walking on rocks since it hurt my feet. I was also grateful to the high top. Without that support, I would have twisted my ankle several times on the way down.

We reached the John Muir Trail/Mist Trail junction at about 6:45pm. Most guidebook suggested taking John Muir Trail because it is less steep, though longer. We debated a little, but decided to take Mist Trail in the hope of covering more ground with the remaining light.

It felt like a mistake after a few steps. Mist trail was very steep. When hiking up, it was tiring, but I was not worried about balance. However, when hiking down, I was concerned I would slip and fall on the very steep trail and be seriously injured. Further, the trail was all rocks, which hurt the feet a lot. The rock surface on the trail felt like it was cut with a slight angle pointing down. This made climbing up easier, but felt really unstable going down.

While Mist Trail to the Happy Isle trail head is shorter, I wondered if we saved any time, since hiking down Mist Trail was really slow. The hiking poles were really helpful because it helped me with balance and took pressure off my knees.

At this point, we were hiking by ourselves, and realized Mist Trail wasn't very well marked! When coming up, there were many hikers on the trail and we did not have to do any trail finding. With the sky was mostly dark and being all alone, we resorted to our memory and foot prints on the trail to find our way.

We made it to Emerald Pond. Another group of hikers from Cisco which we had met atop Half Dome was already there. One of the hikers had done this hike before and he led us down the rest of the way. It was completely dark at this point. Luckily all of us were prepared with flash light and head lamps. I had also ran out of water, but weather was beginning to cool, so I did not feel dehydrated. We were lucky the entire day, since weather was never an issue. It never got too hot or too cold during the hike.

With the Cisco hikers leading the way, we got back to Vernal Falls bridge where we filled our bottles with water. Then it was onto the paved section of the trail. With no problem with footing, it was just a matter of walking the final 1.5 miles to the trail head.

It was 9pm when we reached the trail head and we were all very tired. A bus pulled up at the trail head and the driver was nice enough to wait for us. We asked about riding back to the trail head parking lot, but learned that the bus does not stop there! We had to walk back to the parking lot on foot.

The 1/4 mile hike from the parking lot to the trail head did not feel like anything in the morning, but after hiking for almost 12 hours, the distance felt like it would never end. Again, this path to the parking lot was not well marked and we kept wondering if we were going the right way. It was 9:15pm when we got to the car.

Since our hotel was another 3 hours away, we drove around Yosemite Valley looking for a place to grab a bite. There was a grocery store and we got sandwich and Gatorade.

I must be really tired because after wolfing down a cold Gatorade, I suddenly felt the chills and had to warm myself up wearing a fleece jacket. D took the keys and drove 2 1/2 hours back to the hotel. It was about 12:30am when we arrived.

We took turns showering and hit the sack. I don't know about the other guys, but I fell asleep immediately when my head hit the pillow.

So, Half Dome is in the bag. The final stats: 14 miles, 4800 ft, 12 hours hike. I felt that despite a summer of hiking, we were not as physically prepared as we should be. This hike was the most physically demanding thing I had ever done, and like I told D and I, I had ran 13.1 miles at some point in my life.