Top of the World

My rather long weekend started on Thursday when I headed up to Sacramento for my cousin's graduation ceremony. When I heard there were only about 300 graduates, I figured that the ceremony would only be an hour or so, but apparently when there aren't 700 graduates, you don't have to figure out how to be efficient, and the ceremony lasted about 2.5 hours. Lame.

Friday I took the train down to Fresno where my brother picked me up to head to our annual Yosemite camping trip. The weather was really strange (for June) and the entire valley was covered in clouds. Made for some interesting pictures. Luckily the rain had stopped by the time it turned dark, so we were able to enjoy the campfire and stay dry.

Somehow on Friday evening, I ended up agreeing to do Half Dome in the morning. I had been thinking about doing it, but never said for sure when suddenly it was just assumed that I was going. Never one to turn down a perceived challenge, I agreed to go with some people who had never been to Yosemite. Unfortunately, when the morning came they had decided it was too early to get up and decided not to go.

But since I was already up early, I figured I'd do it anyways (with the company of Soren and John Stewart). The hike is 16.4 miles roundtrip (via the short route which I didn't take because it's killer on my back) so I ended up going more like 18.4 miles. There's also a 4,800 foot elevation climb, including the 400 feet of cables at the very end to get on the top of the dome. Officially, the hike is supposed to take 10-12 hours, not including any time spent on the top (for the shorter version, mind you).

I got up and back in 8 hours, which included time spent on the top, which was between 45 minutes and an hour. It was awesome being up above the clouds and seeing them roll onto the top of the dome.


I had done this hike before (when I was working at camp), but I had apparently blocked the worst part of the hike from my memory - the last mile or so before getting to the cables. It's steps which are very hard on my back to begin with, especially when they are too tall steps that keep going on forever.



I didn't stop for the entire 7ish miles on the way back, mostly because I knew if I stopped (or even slowed down) I probably wouldn't feel like continuing for a couple hours, by which time I would have tightened up. It was actually easier to try and go faster and get into a longer stride than shorten up my steps and take it easy. I know, strange.

Later that night we were sitting around the campfire eating brown bears and s'mores and people were trying to figure out why I killed myself by doing the hike so fast. They asked me if I ran (only a little) and I told them I have the same trouble with running - if I see somebody in front of me I think, "Must catch them!" (which is why I like running where nobody else is, so I don't try to kill myself), and I had this same thought on the trail. Plus, I was honestly feeling pretty good (my back didn't hurt at all!) and I kind of wanted to see how fast I could do the hike.