Yosemite N.P. - The Valley

We were pretty tickled when we got to our campsite in the Valley to find that this was our view! Not bad, eh? We had thought we picked a great site because it was on the river, but didn't expect a clear view of Half Dome.

Now most of you have probably already seen so many pictures of the Valley, so I'm not going to include the standard photo ops, except this one from Mirror Lake.

One day I took advantage of a Photo Walk sponsored by the Ansel Adams Gallery. It was interesting and I enjoyed Christine's philosophical viewpoints. One thing she mentioned was how there are no 'surprises' anymore regarding Yosemite because of the internet. Everyone reads details and looks at tons of pictures, so when they get here they already know what to expect. This includes recent articles on the Moonbows that have been written. So she encouraged us to explore more and find the special places or the special moments and try to find something unexpected. I thought that was wonderful and I agree with her - especially having just been so surprised by the Chilnualna Falls hike. So, it is with trepidation that I'm going to share some of our experiences from our two "big" hikes in the Valley.

Our first challenging hike was to Upper Yosemite Falls. Not too long - about 9 miles r/t - but it had a 2,700' elevation gain. Some people we met consider it one of the hardest hikes in the Valley because there is no break in terrain. It's just up, up, up. We had views of Upper Yosemite Falls through the trees and then the trail wrapped around and put us above the falls. You can't see a whole lot of the falls, even when leaning over the railing. But getting there is the fun part:


While on top of the falls we met John, who is the owner of a guiding company, YExplore. I haven't checked out his site yet, but he was a nice, mild-mannered guy who seemed like he would be good to have as a guide. They also do photography tours which I thought sounded interesting.

We had been asking a number of people about hiking to Half Dome. At 17-miles round-trip, that would be one of the longest hikes we'd ever attempted. John got us all pumped up to do it. But then, later that night, Andy changed his mind. Then our neighbors in camp got him pumped up to do it. But then he waffled again. Andy does this stuff to me all the time. For example, he won't decide on whether he is going to do a triathlon til the night before. So, we agree that he can make the Half Dome-decision at the top of Nevada Falls. If he doesn't want to do it, we'll just do that portion of the hike. So we decide on the day and pack as if we're doing the whole distance.

So we arrive at the top of Nevada Falls after hiking up the granite-step Mist Trail and someone asked us if we were continuing to Half Dome. I had to turn to Andy and ask, "Are we?". Since it was only 8 am at this point (we left the trailhead at 5:45 am), Andy said "sure" since he didn't know what else we would do that day. So we continue the hike to Half Dome. Here's a side view that shows the upcoming trail. The lower half of the hump is what I, lovingly, refer to as "The Steps". Zigzagging granite steps carved into the side of the hump without any sort of railing or protection from a fall. I thought, "If these steps are this scary, what will the cables be like?".

Vertical. The cables were almost vertical - and no one had told us this! We expected steep, yes. We expected to pull ourselves up by our arms, yes. But, vertical? After cresting the hump and getting our first eyeful of the cables, we just sat down and stared. Like every other hiker on the trail with us. Since Andy has his fear of heights, I didn't know if he'd continue. I had spoken with bravado earlier saying if he couldn't do it, perhaps I would do the cables alone. Now that I was looking at them, I wasn't sure if I'd do it alone. Here's Andy waving 'goodbye' before his ascent.

Obviously we did it, and here we are at the top. The sense of accomplishment you feel from tackling something so daunting is wonderful. We had backed away from Angel's Landing in Zion years ago, and that had stayed with me. And, for the record: Andy loved the cables! He even loved sliding down the granite dome even more than pulling himself up. I'm still shocked by that.

We headed off the Dome at noon. The sun was beating down on us and we could feel it sapping our energy. We couldn't celebrate til we were down the cables and off the steps. I'm glad we listened to the advice to leave by 6:00am. I seriously questioned whether I could tackle the cables in the afternoon heat having hiked up to that point in the sun. Uphill hikers were looking spent. Here were some other tips to remember: take a water filter to refill bottles; get to the Dome by noon; protect your feet from water when on the Mist Trail (water levels were too low for us to worry about this, but you can get soaked on this hike); take an extra pair of socks and change them for the way down; use gloves for the cables - rubber palms are the best, leather can slip on the cables. And carry enough food for a 10-14 hour hike. We did it in 11 hrs 15 min. Our neighbors from camp had 6 people hiking and it took them 14 1/2 hrs because of the size of group and an injury on the trail. We took the John Muir Trail back down and this added an extra mile. The trail sign was also about 1/2 mile in from the road. So we totaled this hike as a 19-mile r/t hike. Again, slightly higher than the expected 17 miles. This doesn't include the 2-mile r/t bike ride to get to the trail (shuttle buses don't start til after 7am).

What we might've done wrong: a group of hikers told us about this spring on the trail down. We had enough water to make it to the river below (to filter), but everyone kept telling us how wonderful this spring water was. It was bubbling right out of the ground. They've been drinking directly out of it, unfiltered, for years. We were talked into refilling there. Without using our filter. We started to worry about it right away. A NPS Trail Crew told us we were crazy, which added to our worries. We got to the river, but saw people washing their feet and questioned what could be worse? We kept the spring water and kept hiking. For the next several days we suffered some stomach issues: cramping, bloating, slight nausea. One ranger told us it could be psychosomatic, which is possible considering how we fretted about it. But we were hoping our lapse in judgement wouldn't give us life-long giardia. We won't do that again. But, I'd be curious - anyone out there do the Half Dome hike and drink from that spring? Any after-effects?