After a short jaunt to the Mist Trail head - and a less-than-short stop at the loo - we were off. Dad made the first “are we there yet?” joke about thirty yards in.

The first mile or so was steeper than we all thought it would be. Oddly, there was just as much downhill as there was uphill, which contributed to the grade immensely. Soon enough though, it paid off at Vernal Falls - the first of two major waterfalls - and we quickly learned why it was called the Mist Trail after all.

Getting to the top of Vernal Falls was the first real challenge. The stairs got taller and steeper as we ascended, which meant we all had to stop and rest quite a few times.

It was around this time, however, that the sun began to rise above the mountaintops and shone into the valley. That stark contrast between light and shadow never gets old to me; I think it’s one of the most beautiful things in the world.

Zeb and I started to feel the heat heading up next to Nevada Falls; while we took breaks every few switchbacks, a group of nearly a dozen young hikers behind us didn’t stop once. (We did hear them ask themselves why they were moving so fast while they passed up, though.)

It was at this time that we really started to notice the intensely different colors of the granite. Ranging from off-white to nearly-black, the rock really represented an entire tonal spectrum.

This segment of the climb/hike also involved a good deal of rock scrambling, which really brought me back to the days of climbing Mohonk Mountain with Dad. I knew going in that we wouldn’t make it to Half Dome together, but this reminder of past hikes made it even more bitter.

After reaching the top of Nevada Falls, we were roughly half way. Dan and Dad met us there after only five or ten minutes of waiting (and eating and sunbathing and napping and stretching).

There was a distinct shift in our stamina after we passed through the Little Yosemite Valley. The altitude was definitely starting to catch up with us, and we found ourselves stopping a lot more often that we had at any other point on the trail.

It didn’t help that the trail was either extremely rocky or extremely sandy - or both. It was also… disheartening (?) that for a good chunk of this section, we seemed to be moving away from Half Dome more than we were moving towards it.

Still, though, we could at least see it pretty consistently, for better or worse. On one hand, it was great to have the “finish line” in sight. On the other hand, it looked pretty freakin daunting from some angles; other angles, not so much, but when you looked at it just right, you had to ask yourself how on Earth anyone could get up there.

On this section of the trail, I detected another shift. People started being a lot more social. At this point, everyone you saw was pushing for the summit just like you were (except that one guy that was trail-running up and down the entire mountain). We leap-frogged with a few guys, made friends with a seasoned hiker, and said/heard more “Happy Fourth!”’s than I could count.

Pretty soon, the terrain began to change, too. The trees started to noticeably thin out; the sand became more compact. It started to get a little colder again.

And then, just like that, we were there. We had arrived at the sub dome.

Though the hike began shortly after five in the morning, the day actually began over two hours prior. After warming up our breakfast burritos - and many failed attempts to find Zeb’s headlamp - we loaded up the car and left our AirBnb in Midpines at half past three.

Feeling delayed, I activated my east coast driver mode and cut off about fifteen minutes from our drive. It was kind of an eerie feeling passing the Yosemite gates in the pitch black without any attendants there - but whenever you saw other cars, you were reminded that hundreds of other people were there for the same reason you were.

Because of the extremely heavy snowfall during the 2018-2019 winter season, the waterfalls all over Yosemite were highly active. Remember, it’s the Fourth of July, and we’re at 5,000ft above sea level. Most of the water you see here is still from melting ice and snow run off. That’s pretty wild.

Once we got to the top of Vernal Falls, we could look back and see the crowd growing. I felt a bit relieved, because up until then it was hard to tell if we were early or late to the game. Turns out we were right on time.

Continuing up from Vernal Falls, the boys decided to split up for a couple miles. Zeb and I stayed on the Mist Trail, which is shorter and steeper, while Dan and Dad switched over to the Muir Trail, which is only about a half mile longer, but isn’t quite as steep.

Up until now, I was pretty cold, so I kept asking for the sun to come out. Well, I got what I wished for, and very soon shed my long sleeve shirt.

Luckily/unluckily, I didn’t have to overstuff my bag with it, because it was at this point that Dan and Dad decided to turn around. Between muscle fatigue, thin air, and a host of other factors, it was a good decision, but an ambivalent one nonetheless. We traded some clothing and food (and I handed off my camera), said our goodbye’s and good luck’s, and then we were off.

It’s kind of a shame they didn’t go an extra tenth of a mile, because it soon leveled out as we made our way through the Little Yosemite Valley. The trail winds its way along the upper Merced River for a couple miles until the ascent returns (and bites you in the ass).

After signing in with the Park Ranger at the bottom of the sub dome, we continued up with little rest. We were kinda-sorta looking for some shade to sit under and have our lunch, but we waited a bit too long. We were officially above the tree line.

I’ll give credit where credit is due: Zeb was killing it. He is a machine when it comes to stamina, and unfortunately my legs were really starting to give out. I had to sit down pretty often - the stairs were just brutal for me. Once they ended (about two thirds of the way up the sub dome), I was able to power through to the top with less difficulty.

We finally ate some lunch (which consisted of beef jerky and granola bars, in case you were wondering) and took some pictures, but there wasn’t time to rest. A quick break in the crowd for the cables sent us into action mode, so we put on our gloves and headed over.

The cables. I’m really not sure how I feel about them yet. One minute I thought they were a piece of cake; the next I thought I was about to fall to my death. Honestly, more than I worried about myself, I was worried about everyone else. That’s to say that it was totally crowded. At one point, while waiting for the bottleneck to thin out, someone’s canister of sun block came loose and flew down the mountain. What if it had been their whole backpack — or them entirely?

For what it’s worth, though, this was by far the most friendly and talkative part of the hike. While the bottlenecking did kinda suck, it gave everyone the chance to say hi and root each other on. There’s only one set of cables, but people are going both ways, so when it’s your turn to go, you really do have a whole line of people cheering you on.

One valuable tip that we learned from our ascent of the sub dome: keep a keen eye out for gravel on the way down, and aim to step on the high spots of the granite. No matter how small or delicate of a step you take, if you put your weight on gravel, you’re almost guaranteed to slip.

The guy who gave us this advice told us that his dad was up here a few years ago and rolled half way down the sub dome because he stepped on some gravel. Suffice it to say we followed this advice to a T on our way back down.

About two thirds of the way up the cables, it begins to level out, and the end is officially in sight. And boy oh boy is it a sight.

Sorry, just a little bit more description about the cables.

The cables - besides being drilled securely into the granite - are held up by metal poles placed every ten feet or so. A wooden beam is fastened between each set of poles, providing a small ledge to rest on.

That description is accurate in theory. However in practice, it’s a slightly different story. The metal poles are by no means secured in the rock. If you pull on them, they will come out. This happened on our way down, resulting in a decent gap of the ledges. Instead of a ten foot segment, it became a twenty foot segment.

Of course, when a pole is out of service, so too is the “ledge,” and this was a problem as well.

A few people (including a park ranger) opted to use a safety harness and carabiners to hold them to the cable on their way up and/or down, and this is also wonderful in theory, except that it doubles (or triples) the bottlenecking of the cables in practice. Four hundred feet doesn’t sound that bad on paper, but it’s a good half hour to an hour each way when you factor in everyone else being there too.

I found an interesting article about the cable permits (which you can read here if you’re interested), which outlines how dangerous they’ve become. In summary, it makes an argument that ever since permits have been required to climb half dome, it’s made it more dangerous because it attracts inexperienced climbers (ya know, like us) that otherwise wouldn’t have really thought about climbing it. Even though they wanted to make Half Dome safer by cutting down on crowding, by adding the stakes of having to win a tough lottery, it makes people force themselves to go through with it, thinking it might be their only chance at doing so.

Thanks for listening to my rant about the cables. It’s not meant to scare anyone except my mother. (Love you, Mom!)

Once we made it to the bottom of the sub dome and back on the Half Dome trail, our sense of accomplishment started to flood in. There weren’t really any risky parts left - we were essentially home free, and we could feel it.

Oh were we in for a rude awakening.

From there on out — with a very few, very minor exceptions — it was pretty exhausting. I keep saying this, and I really still mean it almost a week later: I’d rather go up Half Dome three times than come down it once.

Even with my hiking poles (which I admit did help in retrospect), I was just a wreck. One after another, the muscles in my lower body started pulsing, then aching, then throbbing. I felt hip pain for the first time, so… that’s new. Not a fan of that. Everything from my core down to my toes was a mess, and after a while, I was really not having it.

We took a quick break to eat dinner, and in his spare time, the Good Lord Zeb managed to reunite a climbing duo that had been separated miles earlier, but that’s just another Thursday for Him.

And so we continued down…

The last mile was pretty intensely miserable.

Just about every bone in my body (maybe shy of my forearms) was beyond dead. We’d also ran out of water at the top of Nevada Falls, so we were counting down the steps to the water fountain at the bottom of Vernal, which, just like the Little Yosemite Valley, seemed to have somehow been moved since the morning.

When we finally did get to it, I downed an entire water bottle in about point two seconds before going back for more.

I wish I could say seeing two more bears at the trail head made the pain worth it, but it didn’t. I hardly even stopped to look.

The half mile walk from the trail head to the car was by far the most painful. I legitimately wanted to cry.

But at long last, we made it. We did it. We climbed Half Dome.

That’s what made it worth it.

Once I found a nice comfy (flat) spot, I laid down like a cat in the sun. I didn’t even care about getting sunburned, I just needed to be not standing for a few minutes.

After my cat nap, though, I began to take in the view. And that’s when I realized just how incredible it was up there. There have been very few times in my life where I’ve had a completely unobstructed view of the natural world around me, and this was by far the most breathtaking.

After having another snack, we suited up in our patriotic gear - it was the Fourth after all - and had someone take our pictures.

I love that you can see El Cap in the background of all of them. A few years from now, we’ll have the mirror image looking back at Half Dome, I just know it.

The day was only getting shorter, though, so we decided to start heading back down. We walked over to the edge and looked at the Valley far below, trying to spot our car, and that’s when it hit us. Well, that’s when it hit me, at least. I realized our adventure was far from over. In fact, it was anything but.

We were only at the summit. We were only half way.

*queue the fast-paced dramatic music*

So anyways, once we made it off the cables, it was pretty much downhill from there (pun intended).

That doesn’t mean it got much easier, though. The sub dome was a bit slicker than Zeb thought, and he nearly fell a few times. I, on the other hand, took the smallest steps ever seen by humankind and took my sweet time getting down.

We had one last little hit of excitement about a mile down the trail. A couple in front of us said they were warned of a baby and mama bear just in the woods, so we waited for a few groups to walk by together. The mama bear was nowhere to be found, but the baby bear was sitting by itself in a small clearing just off the trail. Zeb snapped a quick pic, but no one was chancing waiting around for the mama bear to come back. We all moved on, happy to have seen what little we did.

I swear to God, the trail grew by like three miles while we were at the summit, because we just could not get to Little Yosemite Valley.

But, much to my chagrin, Zeb was just as right on the way down as he was on the way up. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

We just kept putting one foot in front of the other, and sure enough, familiar landmarks started popping up all over the place. First the campgrounds.

Then the Merced River.

Then Nevada Falls.

We crossed over the Nevada Falls bridge that we’d met Dad and Dan on over nine hours ago.

We descended down the Muir Trail, that actually was covered in horse shit.

We waited our turns as the masses made their way through the mist of Vernal Falls. (It felt a lot better this time around.)