The time has finally come to make our hike up Half Dome! We've done planning and research and feel we are ready for this all-day hike. The elevation gain for this hike is almost 5,000 feet in a 6 mile stretch. Our total miles for the day was over 16 miles.
Our group consists of 5 people for the hike: myself, Mike, 2 co-workers of mine and a friend of one of my co-workers. We start at 5:30am and walk the mile from our camp to the trailhead in the darkness. We start climbing the section of trail called the Mist Trail, it's called that because there are 2 waterfalls that flow alongside the trail and it can be very wet early in the summer. We're lucky that the waterfalls are not flowing very strongly now at the end of August so we stay dry on our way up. And I do mean UP! The mist trail begins as an inclined grade that is paved partway but quickly gives way to about a million granite block steps. Up, up, up til you think your legs will fall off. Eventually you reach the top of the first fall, Vernal Falls. We take a little break here for some water and a little snack. I should mention that the last source of drinkable water is located at the bottom of Vernal Falls, a fact that will be very important later in the hike.
Once we've had a little rest, we cross the river and start climbing alongside Nevada Falls. More of the granite steps here, but these are definitely more difficult as there is a lot of variance in the size and stability of the rocks. After what seems like a lot of climbing, we finally reach the top of Nevada Falls which seems to have more water flowing than the lower falls. At this point we are 3 hours into the hike. They say most people take 12 hours to complete it, so we feel we're making pretty good time.
The next section of trail starts out fairly flat which was a welcome break from all that climbing, unfortunate it didn't last very long before we started a series of switchbacks for the next 2 miles as we approached the subdome. The subdome is a huge rock that you gave to climb over to reach the ascent to the summit of Half Dome. This switchback area is where I ran into trouble. I was getting severe leg cramps and would have to stop every couple of hundred feet to stretch out my leg muscles. I didn't have any sodium or electrolyte supplements with me because I have never cramped up like that before. I was becoming dehydrated at this point too. This slowed us way down and we probably took an hour longer to reach the sub dome due to those cramps.
We finally reached the subdome and guess what? More steps! Except these were pretty scary as the subdome is very rounded and there is a danger of falling to your death from this point on. The steps lasted about halfway up then you had to just scramble and find your way up and over the subdome. We finally reached the cables that you have to climb 500 feet to reach the summit. I started up but was forced to come back down after about 30 feet because my legs were still cramping and I didn't want to get higher and then get stuck on the cables and not be able to go up or down. Only one of our group actually made it up to the summit. I was hugely disappointed to make it that far and not summit, but it was just too dangerous for me and the hikers below me. Two days before we did the hike, they had actually found the body of a tourist who had fallen.
We started back down the trail, ran out of water partway down, and because we needed water we had the take the Mist Trail down all those steps until we reached the top of Vernal Falls where we could filter some water and refill. We finished at 9:30pm, 15-1/2 hours after we started. I'm thinking of trying it again. Mike thinks I'm nuts! :-P
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