Monday, August 18, 2008

Half Dome or Clouds Rest?

Mike Moore and I left at 9:30 Friday night to begin our adventure to make it on top of Half Dome before sunrise. It took us about 2 hours to drive to Yosemite Valley and then our hike began around 11:30 pm.
We've done the hike through the night before with friends and loved it. So when an opportunity arose we jumped on it! A few things, doing night hikes in August is the only way to go. Make sure you take the bug spray with you on the trip...it doesn't last 10 hours and it was mosquito haven. Pack plenty of water, you'll sweat a lot. Go when there's a full moon, it's amazing, it's like you have night vision.
Hiking in the night does have it's disadvantages...lack of sleep and you can miss signs. We really had good intentions to get to Half Dome.Here's Mike enjoying the hike up. Side note: One thing I hate about the hike...the hike down. I would much rather go up than down any day. Anyway...about 6 miles into Mike and I missed the Half Dome sign and just kept following a trail. We ran into some guys that were going up too and Mike asked if this was Half Dome's trail. Yup you're on it. Alright if they say so. LIARS! No it actually wasn't. Four miles later we are on top of another mountain that is east of Half Dome, Clouds Rest. ARRGG! So you mean to tell me that the last 5 hours we've been hiking was done in vain? YUP! RATS!! We made it for the sunrise just the same but it wasn't on top of Half Dome it was looking at Half Dome. If you ask me I'd rather have done this hike since there's no cables here. (I HATE the cables).
After a few photos Mike and I started our decent. We ran down most of the first 4 miles. We ran into a camera that someone had dropped and we looked through the pictures to see if it was anyone we had met along the way. Sure enough it was a member of a group that had left Clouds Rest about 30 min before us. It helped that we were running to catch them. In the mean time Mike and I were having so much fun we took a few pictures on their camera to remember us by. (I used my camera to copy them)
All in all it was well worth it. We want to do it again and be mentally as well as physically ready to tackle Clouds Rest.
I'd take nature over Vegas any day!!
After we got home I slept for 14 hours straight.

3 comments:

Lisa and Rustin said...

hee hee...you two are hot!

duuuuuuuude...my abs are killing me today...i gotta keep it up! i want abs like you!!

Audrey said...

ok tell me again why you and m&m haven't hooked it up??
Looks fun and BEAUTIFUL!

Barrett, Melinda, Angel Trinity, and Baby Zander said...

beautiful pics...half dome is quite an accomplishment...we did it in the heat of June a few summers ago with Jason. Beautiful views.