intellectual properties

mountain escapism pt. 1

after taking the cat back to the vet for a check-up (she’s mostly fine now and does not require surgery), we left friday evening and arrived in Curry Village in Yosemite Valley a little after midnight on friday night where we had rented a tent cabin for 2 nights. saturday we went for a nice long day hike around the valley (around Mirror Lake, which was dry (watch video here) to get acclimated to the elevation and to get our muscles warmed up, and went to bed really early after sunset. the valley was full of families and day hikers, although a bit less crowded than it is in the summer, but still a lot of children and noise. we had to sleep with earplugs in.

sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast, did some last minute preparations, packed our backpacks and put all our extra items in a bear locker, and took off for what would be jay’s first ever overnight backcountry backpacking trip and my first one in 10 years. our ultimate goal was the top of Half Dome: 8,800 feet in elevation and 4,700 feet from where we started. each of our packs weighed between 20 and 30 lbs (despite best efforts to pack lightly), and so the ascent was slow and the first hour or so was full of a lot of stopping, catching breath, adjusting, and silently wondering if we were overextending ourselves, considering we hadn’t *really* trained at all, either cardiovascularly or muscularly. i mean, i went to the gym a few extra times the week before, but that’s nothing really to prepare you for 5 miles of an uphill climb with 25 lbs on your back.

still, after an intense warm up period we slowly but surely made our way up the trail to Little Yosemite Valley, to the campground just below Half Dome (at 6100 feet). it took us about 4 hours to go about 5 miles. the campground is nestled into a nice redwood grove next to the Merced River, about 3.5 miles from the top of Half Dome. it was warm and sunny, and we set up camp, hung out by the river, built a fire and met some of our campsite neighbors, including Mati, a fellow Burner, and a man with his young (9ish?) son. we determined that we wanted to summit Half Dome at sunrise the next day (my birthday, Monday, 10/1, and also Mati’s birthday too!), as a) sunrises are beautiful, b) we wanted to beat any crowd there might be and c) i have a thing with sunrises and mountains and what better way to start a birthday?

monday morning, we awoke at 4:30am, woke up Mati and the three of us started the 2700′ ascent in the cold darkness. although it had been a clear sky when we went to bed, the moon was now covered in clouds. still, the moonlight peeked through and the trail, being so well traveled, wasn’t hard to follow up up up through the trees, except when we got to the first rock climb, before the cables, where it was a bit hard to tell which way to go. when the trees disappeared, so did the trail, and in the early dawn it was a bit difficult to distinguish any established rock path from just plain rocks. still, we knew the basic direction and kept moving upward, now more or less just climbing up rockface. there was one other person ahead of us on the trail, a man named Jim whom Mati had met back down in the valley. he was sitting waiting for the sun to come up/for it to get warmer when we got to him, but as it didn’t appear that was going to happen, he joined us.

so over the first rockface we climbed, using both rock steps and just scrambling up granite, and reached the bottom of the cables that lead up the side of halfdome. these steel cables and horizontal wooden slats provide the only support for making the final 400 feet of ascent up the granite face, which at points feels like a basically vertical climb. the pictures just do not do it justice in terms of how steep it is, especially near the top, and how small you are, like an ant climbing up the side a garden wall. i was using the full strength of my arms to pull my body weight upward with the cables, my feet providing the traction and legs also pushing. it was incredibly cold, just after dawn, and gusts of icy wind were blowing. even with my gloves, my fingers started to go numb, so, waiting for Jim in front of me, i alternated putting them in my mouth.

it only took about 15 minutes for all 4 of us to get up to the top, and once we did we discovered that indeed we were the first ones there. a wide empty expanse of granite and amazing view of the horizon and surrounding peaks greeted us, but so also did a cold harsh wind and gray sky:

we found a rock shelter just at the edge of the face and alternated huddling there for warmth and getting out to take photos. we had hoped that the clouds would burn off and we’d get a warm sunrise, but they never did. every sunrise i’ve ever spent on top of a mountain (Cadillac Mountain (1,530 ft) in Maine in 1997, Poon Hill (10,500 feet) in the Himalaya in 2003) has been extremely cold and windy, so i guess i should have expected that. due to it being extremely cold, we didn’t hang out up there that long – about 45 minutes. i imagine on a nicer, sunnier morning i could hang out up there for hours. it was nice, though, that we were the only people. in the summer, thousands of people do this climb every day, including a lot of children, and i’ve heard it’s rather crazy at the top.

so then came the descent. i myself found the descent down the cables to be really fun. i have zero fear of heights as long as i feel in control. the cables and my steady footing had me feeling really confident, and if it weren’t for my freezing fingers i would have practically slid down that face like i was on a zip line if i could have. however, i was also keenly aware that jay, behind me, was not descending anywhere near as fast as i was, and so i stopped at waited a couple of times, although with the wind this made me even colder. when he got about 3/4 of the way down, i just went for it and zoomed! it was super fun. if it were warmer, i might have even gone up and come back down, knowing i will most likely never get the chance again.

by the time we started descending on the actual trail, the sun was coming out and we kind of wished we had waited a couple of hours, but there were also then a lot of people coming up, and we wouldn’t have had the fine experience of ascending/descending and being at the summit with just the 4 of us in our group either (i mean, look at these photos from peak times in summer, where there is more or less a traffic jam on the cables and people who get impatient start walking on the outsides. this is SO UNSAFE as, like i said, it is sheer rockface and so vertical. we had the luxury of being able to take it slow and use both hands on both cables both up and down. these people standing outside of the cables are INSANE.). we got back to camp and after saying goodbye to our hiking pals and a couple of shots of birthday scotch, we took a long nap.

we woke up in the early afternoon to a glorious sunny day, and debated whether to stay another night in the campground, as planned, or pack up and hike the 5 miles back down to the valley and get a hot meal and room for the night. plan B won out, as jay and i are just not very good at keeping ourselves entertained in the middle of the quiet wilderness. it wasn’t warm enough to hang out at the beach and swim in the river, the campground was fairly empty of other people to hang out with, and we hadn’t really brought anything to do. the only option was to go for another day hike, and we decided if we were going to hike, we might as well hike out. so, we packed up camp and started the descent back to Yosemite Valley.

on the way down, we took the shorter but steeper Mist Trail, which follows the Merced River and two amazing sets of waterfalls. this trail is mostly a series of rock stairs instead of a path, which with 20-30 lbs on your back starts to hurt your knees after a while going down. still, it cut 1.5 miles off the distance to the bottom, and plus it’s much more scenic. we reached the valley floor and were back at the car again at about 6:00pm.

so, in essence, we did 2/3 of the Half Dome hike in one day (with a nap in between), having done the first 5 mile leg to the campground the day before. doing all 15 miles from the valley floor to the summit and back down in one day would be killer, but not impossible, but i don’t think i’d ever want to do it, mostly because of the elevation change and not having time to acclimate. my lungs were hurting as it was, but maybe without a full pack it wouldn’t be so bad. thousands of people do it every year, but i’m not sure how many of them know what they’re getting into or would ever want to do it again.

monday night we then drove out of the valley and back west on hwy 120 and stopped in the quaint little mountain town of Groveland, where we rented a room at the historic Groveland Inn bed and breakfast. the room included a fabulously comfortable featherbed, a deep bath tub, and teddy bears! we had a late dinner at the mexican restaurant across the street (where they put PORK in my SALAD DRESSING (!?) – gah. the only bad thing that happened all weekend, so i let it slide without much bellyaching…), i took a hot bath to soothe my severely aching leg muscles, and we settled in for a good night’s sleep. tuesday morning we had a delicious breakfast, watched some television (always a treat for us now that we don’t have one at home), and then made our way out of the mountains and through the hot and sunny central valley home.

it was a challenging yet beautiful weekend, and despite the residual aches and pains i feel all the better for it. though thousands have completed the same journey, it was no small feat and i’m proud of both of us for having done it.

for the follow-up post about other thoughts related to this trip and the some of the context of my life during which this travel occurred, see here.

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