I have lived in California for 2.5 year now. CRAZY! The thing that I love most about it is the ample amount of active outdoor activities that are so close in proximity! For example, Yosemite is only 3 hours away! When we were planning our honeymoon we knew we wanted to something adventurous and also something fun. So we decided to split our time between Yosemite and Disneyland, neither of us had ever been to Yosemite (shame on John!) and I had never been to Disneyland so it was quite exciting for us! We didn't just want to sit around Yosemite and marvel at its beauty, although we DID do that, we wanted to get out there and experience it! So we planned to climb half dome! Several people thought we were weird for wanting to do such a long day trip on our honeymoon but it was perfect for us. After we rented a car for our trip (which ended being a free upgrade to a Mercedes!) we headed south! Or southeast I guess, I'm not good with directions.
The car ride was quite nice and we pretended the whole time that it was so lame that we had to take the Mercedes instead of our nice car. Here is John acting Yuppy with his cup of coffee and his Mercedes. The hike up Half Dome was amazing! And amazingly difficult! But so worth it. We started early in the morning...
By the time we hit the trail head it was around 5:15. We hiked in pretty much silence and darkness for about an hour or so until the sun started to rise. The only noise that could be heard was from a girl (maybe myself) saying "hey bear!" every so often to keep from running into one of the furry creatures. (Next time ill use the bear bell John got me for christmas!)
The sun rise was beautiful! The uphill climb wasn't getting any easier but we kept going! I was not going to give up on our honeymoon!! So we kept on keeping on. John had to stop and wait for me a couple times, I can never keep up with him, but slow and steady won the race! Before we knew it, we were standing at the foot of the dome!
If you look close at this picture you can see the ladder leading up the dome. It is relatively empty right now, but what you can't see is the long line of people in front us making their way up sub dome to get to the cables! The cable portion was exhausting because we had to hang and wait while others slowly pecked their way up. But at last, we had done it! We were on top!
Standing on top was pretty amazing. And even though I was pretty tired, I still had time to enjoy the view. After a snack, some chatting, and some pictures, it was time to head down. It was about 1:00 at this point and we had already been hiking for approximately 7.5 hours. We knew that the trip down though would be faster, so we got up and excitedly made our way down.
Going down the cables was much easier than going up. I grabbed onto the cables, pointed my butt backwards and walked down butt first. This was the easiest way, I think, to get down the steep slope. The rest of the journey down the mountain was not recorded on film. The trip down proved to be much harder than the trip up, our knees were on fire! Thinking we were young and invincible, the two of us failed to train adequately for the pounding our joints would take coming down the steep trail! By the time we got back to the trail head around 6, we were in need of some food, and some Advil! My feet and ankles were swollen from my new boots and I could hardly walk. Hungry, tired, and stinky, we headed to the Cafeteria at Curry Village for some bland buffet style food. After dinner we crashed in our curry village tent and fell right to sleep.
The next day was the part of the Yosemite portion where we would be lazy and and in love. We sipped lattes on wooden rocking chairs and watched deer and squirrels play. We people watched while we ate pastries and enjoyed the sunny crisp morning. We took the transit through the valley and visited El Capitan where we watched the climbers painstakingly move an inch every couple minutes.
We had a simple deli lunch and beer and pizza for dinner and talked for hours until we were so sleepy we had to crash. Our Yosemite trip was definitely one to remember and definitely something we will be doing again! Next time, we want to try the two day version on half dome and backpack.
As we headed out of Yosemite, bound for Disneyland, we stopped to take one last photo. A funny memory of us, a couple, whose car barely runs, posing in front of our Mercedes in the middle of the Great Yosemite Valley.
*look for our post late this year after we climb Mt. Shasta!!!
