If you have a mountain to climb, waiting won't make it any smaller.

Any search you do on Yosemite NP, you'll get most entries concerning the waterfalls at the valley and Half Dome. For most hikers, Half Dome is *the* day hike to complete in this part as a single trip. It is about 15 miles round trip and involves a constant climb of 4700 feet to the top and the same amount for descent. The last few hundred feet of linear travel involve a very steep descent that is typically only possible by non-climbers because of a series of cables that the park service puts up in the summer months. One usually has to get started at first light in order to comfortably make it back by dusk. When I got to the trail intersection in the morning, about a mile from where I slept, I was only 2 linear miles from the top, but believe me, it was a tough two miles. I cooked some oatmeal and had whatever leftover jerky I had available since I wanted all the energy I could muster. I stashed my pack of everything but my water container, camera, and trail gorp and headed up. The trek was pretty strenuous and I could definitely start to feel my body start wearing down after the constant pounding I'd been giving it over the past couple of weeks, but then I really liked getting the chance to really push myself. When I got to the cables I rested for a while to finish off my food, set the trekking poles aside, and put on the gloves I brought to protect my hands from the steel cables. Since it was relatively early, there were not too many people yet ascending, so movement was pretty fluid. The pictures I have really cannot easily convey the angle at which we were climbing. The rock was pretty smooth and slipping away from the cables would definitely be the end of you or whomever was below you, so one constantly had to be aware of what was going on ahead of them. Though it took quite a while to finish with a lot of climbing spurts and resting, hitting the summit was exhilarating. I hung out for quite a while taking in the views from all the different angles. The only thing that confounded me was how all the marmots got to the top. This was definitely an area of easy pickings for them as I witnessed several incidents of them taking food bags while just a few feet from an unsuspecting picnicker or even chewing through a bag to get to the goodies.

After spending probably two hours up there, I eventually decided to make my way back since I was going to get hungry soon and had no more food available since I did not resupply as I had planned in the beginning. by the time I was ready to go, thee were a good number of people already walking around the top, but as I came down, there was a huge amount of people trying to get up the cables. I had to descend on the outside of the cables to really be able to move quickly enough since going down between them would just get too dangerous with a chance of getting entangled with someone. Take a look at the picture to the right to get an idea of the height, steepness, and crowd that was experienced after I made it back down. This base here is about 7 miles from the closest road and on had had an elevation gain of around 4000 feet. If you one can push themselves to do this hike in its entirety, then you can do just about anything.

The hike back into Yosemite Valley was excellent and I made several long stops a Nevada Falls. I rested for a while along the Silver Apron which was a smooth rocked area that looked like a great water slide, but would turn deadly real fast due to the swiftness of the water before heading to the Vernal Falls via the Mist Trail (having been dubbed the obvious name because of the mist from the rocky basin area).

After getting back I broke down and decided to hit the pizza place at the Wilderness center to enjoy a calzone and get something to drink that I didn't have to pump through a filter. After a long, but satisfying dinner I figured a shower and clean clothes were in order and went to one of the campgrounds to get cleaned up. Before stopping though, I wanted to get some sunset shots in the valley. Here I saw the most amazing display of colors on the entire trip. Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, and the surround areas were awash in crimson and gold. I could only stare at the wonderous properties of nature and feel so thankful that I had such an opportunity to witness this kind of scene first hand. If this is the road to transcendentalism, then I'm interested in learning more. Since I had not done any laundry in quite a while, I spent the last part of the evening in the laundromat and tried to catch up on some of my journal entries while I charged my electronic devices at any of the open outlets I could find. After all this was done, I was really too exhausted to drive and went back to the trail parking to sleep in the car, but was accosted by a park ranger around 2AM with the information that car camping was (understandably) not allowed due to bear activity and tendency for people to still keep their food and scented materials with them. Rather than go to a campground and set up a tent, plus pay $20 for 4 hours of sleep, I just gather my materials from the bear box, drove out of the valley, and crashed as soon as was past the posted park boundary.