Half Dome! July 10, 2016

Panoramic view on top of Half Dome!  I made it!

I had been dreaming of climbing Half Dome for the last 15 years, but I was waiting till my kids were old enough.  This was the fourth time we had tried winning the Half Dome Lottery!  About 300 permits are issued per day.  Some are attained through overnight wilderness permits and others in an advance lottery, but the daily lottery only issues 50 permits per day.  We tried once a couple years ago and then again this Memorial Day Weekend and Fourth of July Weekend.  Both my husband and I each entered and put different alternate leaders since you're not allowed to enter the lottery more than once per day.  We asked for 6 permits since that's the max, and you never know who will be available to go.  If you want to climb on Sunday, you need to enter the lottery by 1PM on Friday and pay $4.50 for the application.  Well this time Friday at 2PM I got a notification that my credit card had been charged $48 by rec.gov!  I didn't receive the email confirmation and permits till midnight but I kind of knew that I won from the credit card charge!  I gathered up 5 of who could could go, and we started looking for hotels!

We found the Yosemite Inn, in Mariposa, about an hour away from Yosemite Valley.  I was happy we found anything and that I wouldn't have to sleep in the car.  However, I wish I had just slept in the car and wouldn't recommend this place as I was eaten by bed bugs and ended up having to sleep on the floor.  After sleeping very little that night, I really didn't think I would make it to the top of Half Dome.  Although we woke up at 4:30PM and aimed to leave the hotel by 5AM and get to the valley by 6, we really didn't start hiking from our car until 7AM, and it was about a mile to the trailhead.

My 11 yr old daughter decided to stay with friends that weekend.  My 15 yr old and her friend came with us but decided to take an easier hike and didn't join us for Half Dome.  So it was just my husband, my 14 year old son and myself.  My son would rather have been watching France vs. Portugal.  He said that kind of soccer game only happens once every 4 years, and the only reason we won the lottery was because everyone else was watching that game.  Fine by me!

My husband and son had regular backpacks and 3-4 16 oz.  water bottles each.  I decided to try out my neighbor's camel pack with 3L water bladder and straw.  I stuck 3 more water bottles, a sandwich and snacks in.   I'm really glad I could sip water as as I was walking and very thankful for the waist belt and sternum strap.  It's really helpful to have no weight on your shoulders!

top of Vernal Falls

We passed Vernal and Nevada Falls and and then a Swedish couple who said they were on Half dome at sunrise and on their way down.  We probably got to the ranger permit check point around 10:30 AM.  One man was getting grilled by the ranger, who wouldn't give him his driver's license back until he dug through his backpack and found his permit.  The ranger had an iPad with names of permit holders, but that man's name wasn't on it.  When the ranger got to me, I was worried he would be angry that we only had 3 people in our party but permits for 6.  To the contrary, he looked delighted and asked if I'd be willing to let others who were waiting hop on my permit.  I agreed and asked the others to each pay me the fair $8 for their share.  So it seems one can plausibly head for Half Dome without permits, leave early, hike to the permit check point and hope that a party comes along with fewer people than their permit allows.  That also seems risky though, and I'd feel much better having my permit ahead of time.  One the way back, around 3PM, we noticed three young teenagers who wanted to go up, but the ranger only had 2 spare permits donated to him, so he wouldn't let any of them up because he didn't want to divide the kids.  Meanwhile, another party of 4 adults was trying to go up.  Get there early if you're going to take your chances!  There just aren't that many people starting Half Dome so late!  No one wants to negotiate all those rocky steps downhill in the dark!  We did buy head lamps at Home Depot just in case, but never needed them.

headlights we didn't need

Around 11:30 AM, we got to the point where you can see Half Dome and itsy bitsy people scaling the seemingly vertical wall.  At that point, I was pretty sure I would chicken out, but we would hike up to the bottom of the cables anyway.  Hiking the stairs up the subdome was not an after dinner stroll, and my husband remarked that his heart rate was probably 180, but I assured him that mine never passed 115 on my Fitbit and that it just seemed like you were going to have a heart attack.  Adrenaline was high and the fact that I had only a slept a couple hours the night before was forgotten.  I questioned several people who were coming down as we were ascending.   I asked them if they made it up.  I got sundry answers such as: "No, I got dizzy and had to turn back- I'm afraid of heights." "Yes, it's chilly up there, but maybe it's warming up now."  "No, there's a line you have to wait in, and I have to get back.  I didn't think I 'd have time."  "Yes.  it wasn't scary for me at all."  "No, it looks too difficult so I turned back."  My husband told me to stop asking people so I wouldn't spook myself.

At 12:24 PM, I donned my Home Depot $3.99 gripping gloves and started up the cables.  There are about 6 feet between each vertical post and you can place your feet just uphill of each post and lean on it to take a break.  Then when the person in front of you moves to the next post, you can make the next 6 feet climb, which involves half pulling yourself up and half using your feet if your shoes have good traction.  You can put one hand on each cable or both on the same cable.  I mixed it up to use

Pulling myself up the cables- with my son

different muscles.  I never felt unsafe or like I was going to slip.  I'm the kind of person who can do 20 pushups, but I can't even do a single pull-up unassisted.  So you don't need inordinate strength to make it up.  It seemed the people coming down were taking more breaks than those going up. Some people were saying it was scarier going down.  My son's feet were slipping, and he didn't have enough upper body strength to pull himself all the way up, so after about 1/3 of the way up, he turned around and slid down with my husband.  I made it up by 12:45, and my husband made it up just 5 minutes after me.  My son waited for us at the base of the cables where he had a good time defending his backpack from marmots.  Regular cross trainers were too slippery on the granite.  My Keens were perfect, and my husband was quite happy with his indoor soccer cleats!

View from the bottom of the cables

Panoramic view at the top of Half Dome

Meanwhile,  we enjoyed the most spectacular weather and views at the summit, where we had our lunch.   I certainly would have stayed for 2 hours, soaking up the sun and the views, if my son hadn't been waiting down below.  It wasn't hot or cold, but it was sunny and the breeze was pleasant after the 10 mile climb!  I'm not sure why the guidebooks say it's 8 miles up, but from the parking lot I had already put in 10 miles, according to Fitbit, which seems accurate on all my other trips.  25,000 steps to the top of Half dome and 500 flights of stairs!  Some climbers were sitting on the edge with their feet dangling over the cliff.  Someone could have just pushed them right over.

We conquered Half Dome!

The cable trek down could have been wild fun, but the line was so backed up.  I was running/sliding between posts, letting the cable slide through my gloves.  I would have loved to have run down the dome.   We overheard a tour guide following us with his group say that before there were permits for Half Dome, everyone just helped each other and took his advice.  But as soon as people got permits, they wouldn't listen to a mountaineer's advice anymore.  Instead, they say, "I have a permit, so I'm allowed to be up here."  With permits came longer wait times to get down the mountain because people stopped helping each other.  That guide said he'd been up the Half Dome 15 times this year and over 100 times in total.  I did notice that if you don't want to risk losing the lottery, you can pay a tour company $200/person and book your trip ahead of time while the company secures your permits.

Half Dome Descent

Exhausted- still a mile to go to the bottom

It felt great to make it down although my arms were getting quite tired by the end.  It felt like we had conquered Half Dome, and I had succeeded in accomplishing my personal marathon.  Yet, going down proved to be no picnic.  If we stopped to break, our legs started shaking.  If we walked slowly and carefully, the muscles were brutally aware.  Yet, if we jogged, gravity sent us rolling down in relative comfort!  We just had to stay vigilant of slippery sand on the rocks.  By the time I was back at the car, I'd used up almost my whole 3 liter pack of water and 1 extra water bottle. We were so exhausted at the bottom the ride home to San Jose was pure torture.  While I was at the top of Half Dome, I kept saying that I would definitely do this trip again.  But a couple miles from the bottom of the valley, I was saying I wasn't so sure!  The whole round trip took just under 12 hours, including all of our snack stops.

50,000 steps up and down

20 miles up and down