Half Dome - Yosemite

Several months ago, when we were talking about going to Eagle Lake this year, John and I talked about hiking to the top of Half Dome while were in California. Even though the schedule was very hectic and we were all tired, we still did the trip to Yosemite to hike up Half Dome. I’m really glad we did it. Even though the hike was exhausting, it was worth it. The views were spectacular and now we can say we did what many people never do. John had hiked to the top twice before, but Sarah, Joseph and I hade not made the hike before.

Since Yosemite is more than a three hour drive from San Jose, Mom volunteered to be the designated driver so we could sleep on the way there and on the way back to San Jose. We arrived in Yosemite after 7:30am on Tuesday, July 1st. We started hiking about 7:45am.


We stopped for a photo on the bridge early in the hike.



We hiked on the Mist Trail for the first part of the hike which goes past Vernal Falls. It is pretty obvious where the name Mist Trail comes from.

I could not get a good photo of all of Vernal Falls from the trail, so I took two photos and pasted them together, but they did not match up well because of the camera angle, but it is still an impressive waterfall.
When we got to the top of Vernal Falls, we took a break.

The next waterfall further up the trail is Nevada Falls. Both of these waterfalls are the Merced River.

Before the Merced River and the trail separate, we stopped to filter water with John’s new filter and refill our camelbaks and water bottles.
Next to where we filtered the water, there were some shrubs with white and yellow flowers. I thought they looked a little like orchids.

This is Sarah at about the half way point. The back side of Half Dome is in the background.

The trail went by some “small” redwoods.

Here we are about three quarters of the way up. The top still looks far away.

After you good and tired, there are stairs in the form of switchbacks up the side of the mountain. The stair steps varied in height from a few inches to as much as 20 inches. My old knees did not like the stairs. As you can see, I could not even come close to keeping up with the younger legs.

The last part of the trail has steel cables to help you get to the top. The cables are much easier to use if you are wearing good gloves. There is a pile of gloves that people use on the way up and return on the way down.

These are the cables that helped us up and down the top part of the rock. As you can see, the top part of Half Dome seems to be one solid chunk of granite.

Sarah is dangling her feet over the edge. It is a long way down.
More photos of us at the top.

The cables were pretty easy going down, but some people were pretty nervous because you can see how far down it is if you should fall. Many went down backwards and did not have to look down. I enjoyed looking down. It was cool.

John stopping for a drink when we got down to “flat” ground and trees again.

We were running low on water again, so we stopped at a small spring and re-filled our water supply. There were others that also wanted some water that did not bring anywhere close to enough water. We shared.

On the hike down, Joseph heard a rattling sound and found rattlesnake. We kept our distance. The telephoto lens allowed us to stay back and still get a photo.

This is Nevada Falls on the way down with the sun shining on it.

We stopped above Vernal Falls to wash off some of the dirt and sweat. It felt really good.

We made it down to the car about 7pm, making the entire hike a little over 11 hours long. We stopped at Jack in the Box for dinner on the way home. It really tasted good.