Half Dome Recap
...in...pain...

Well, I can't say that I didn't expect it, but I can still complain.

Saturday from about 9:15 am to 9:00 pm, I hiked. Up, up, up, and down Half Dome in Yosemite for a combined 17-mile hike. I definitely questioned my sanity during a couple of the really hard parts of the hike (the stairs of death near the top, the cables at the top, hiking in pitch black darkness), and my friend Susanna Han and I mutually agreed to slap/shoot the other if we considered doing the hike again while we hiked back down the mountain together.

That being said, I'm still pretty proud that I got as far as I did. The smaller group of about 6 that I hiked up with (of the 15) ended up taking the shorter but more difficult trail for the first half of the hike (the Misty trail) - definitely not by choise or even awareness - but we did get to see two waterfalls as opposed to only one. Thankfully, the weather was perfect for the hike - sunny, not too hot, and a slight breeze. It only got cold at the top of the mountain. The second half of the 8.2 miles up seemed to take forever, and I seriously thought I might fall off the rock surface we had to climb up in order to reach the cables.

Now, I say that I climbed Half Dome, and this is absolutely true. The fact that I only went half way up the cables and had to go back down is purely a technicality for me. The feat of climbing 8 miles up this mountain can't be made any less admirable because I couldn't pull myself up the cables and literally feared for my life. Let me just show you what I was up against:

You see the little ant trail of people going up the side of the mountain? Yeah, thats it. Now, picture me half way up with my arms and legs cramping, and seeing the solid rock abyss that I could potentially squash into if my arms gave out on me. I decided that the view from the mountain top right below the summit top was good enough for me/worth my life, and slooooowly climbed back down. Everyone was disappointed because I "was almost there!" but I literally didn't have enough upper body strength to do it...I think if I'd been fresh and not so tired from the 8 mile hike to get there I might have been able to do it.

Susanna ended up doing the same thing, but Kristine proved to be the real Gangsta, and was the only girl (of four) who made it allll the way to the top, cables and all. New nickname: Gangsta K.

It took about a third less time to go down than up, and since we had a somewhat late start, the last two hours or so of the hike were flashlight-led, in the daaark. So dark that we ended up going down the wrong trail, a horse trail, with lots of horse crap and other people who went the wrong way. Thankfully, stranger Dave told us of our mistake and that we'd end up at the right place anyway. Injuries, scary bridges and roads, and the dark complicated the journey down even more, but thanks to stranger Dave again (he came back UP the trail to find us - literally a Godsend), horse crap leading the way, and shuttle buses, we finally made it back to our cars, and enjoyed dinner at 11:15pm at the hostel we stayed at. Eat, Shower, BED!

Waking up on Sunday was paaainful. And the pain was pretty much as potent today when I woke up. Oh my leeeg! SOOOO SOOOORE. Next time (slap me) I'm going to be in better shape.

More pictures of the adventure to come.