Egg #11 - Half Dome

4:30 am the alarm went off and after that the first sounds I heard were morning greetings from Bethany’s “I didn’t sleep enough last night” voice, “I’m tired,” she moaned. Then as she lifted the sleeping bag over her head in the same voice came a disappointedly resolved, “I smell.” Despite these minor setbacks we arose by 4:40am, excited to take on Yosemite’s highest peak; the legendary Half Dome…in our chacos.

We reached the trailhead by 6:30am largely due to the fact that our campsite was a 45 minute drive from the trailhead. We like to divide the hike into five portions:

1. the trek to the checkpoint

2. up the face

3. the top

4. down the face

5. back to the bottom.

Section one went spendidly and we felt great on our freshly rested legs that were itching for some exercise after a week and a half of driving and sitting chatting with people. Some notable happenings along the way were as follows:

-     -  Leapfrogging a father/son duo from Jersey (I really liked their strong accents) and their third party member. This third companion was the cause of the leapfrogging. In their own words, they were the hares and he was the tortoise. Poor fellow, we felt badly that he got left behind.

-     -  We also noticed that a fellow named Joe had written his name in the dirt. We think we may have discovered a new technique to help motivate boys to learn the art of cursive writing. Unfortunately, we would not be able to teach them with this new technique as we do not have the proper equipment.

-      - As with Disneyland, Bethany decided to talk with almost every person we passed as she wanted to know what time they had gotten themselves out of bed and how long they had been on the trail. Some were more receptive to her friendly antics than others. Increased dirt = decreased receptivity with the exception of a group of attractive boys whose ring-leader had a darling lisp that were thrilled to find out that they could purchase beer and pizza in the valley after a 5 day packing trip.

-      - Encountering only one other chaco-wearer who was a very attractive young man our age that could have fit in well with Portland outdoor culture.

Section two was where we both got a little nervous. I had been complaining about how I wanted to see our destination to motivate my legs to continue up the steep slope. However, once we caught view of the top we both wondered if we had bitten off more than we could chew this time. It should be noted that permits are required to climb the Dome, but they don’t check for permits until you have climbed 7 of the 8 miles. We made sure to double-check that we had those permits. So, up we went, first a section of granite slabs to summit the sub-dome. People said many words of encouragement, but mainly were impressed that we had gone that far in our chacos. Then we came to the cables; four hundred feet of vertical…yup, vertical monkey bars. At this point both of our stomachs were turning and we were sucking air both from the adrenaline rush and the exertion, but there was no going back. We seized our rubber gloves for better traction on the cables and went for it. People cope with fear in many different ways. We discovered that our best mechanism was to start mindless side-chatter with all of the people who were passing us as they came down.

Section three, the top, was a view that truly rewarded our bravery and athleticism on the cables. Raw cliffs of rock surrounded us with the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range a mist in the distance and the trees on the valley below mere matchsticks. It truly felt like something out of an adventure movie where we were the stars. So we did what every tourist does; took pictures ourselves and others who wanted to capture the moment and then called our moms who were grateful to know that we were, thus far into our adventure, safe. We were pleasantly surprised to run into Jersey boy and his father. At this point he had taken his shirt off and wrapped it around his head to reveal a sight almost as nice as the mountains surrounding us. They took our picture and we took theirs, me with my iPhone because unfortunately, their iPhone camera died just as Bethany was about to snap their picture. To help them out we volunteered the use of my iPhone with the promise of an e-mail once we had internet access. Their picture is included below for your viewing pleasure.

Section four, the descent. We were warned by 90% of the people descending as we ascended the face, that this part of the hike would be the scariest. We found, however, that since we had mastered the mountain and our mindless chatter skills, it wasn’t quite so bad after all. Bethany used the following methodology on the cables.

Chacos = sled

Sliding hands with death grip on cables = runners

Sled + Runners = the Taft Toboggan

It may not have been the most gracefully method, BUT we are both alive today to tell the tale. So don’t knock it until you’re up there. What surprised us was that descending the granite slabs was scarier than the cables as we were never quite sure if there was a thin layer of dust over the rock which could have resulted in a costly slip. Also, our large muscles were real tired and we had to recruit the smaller muscles in our legs that we didn’t know we had. We were cheered, however, when a group of fellow climbers dubbed us, “Team Chaco.”

There isn’t a lot to report about the last section other than our frantic attempts to descend in order to use the restroom. Our leave no trace permitted us no other option. After stopping by Vernal Falls, washing our very dirty and tired chaco feet, and eating a couple of cookies, we wound our way down the overly-crowded steps that would take us back to the trailhead.

The five dollar shower we paid for may have been the best five dollars we have spent this trip. We went to sleep clean and happy in the knowledge that we had spent the day conquering a worthy opponent.

P.S. Thanks to Katy Taft, our local pharmacist, for the Tylenol. Our sore and swollen knees will be eternally grateful.