Well, in a way, Day 1 actually started the day before that. I drove to Yosemite on Wednesday afternoon, set up camp, etc by 6pm. Met with my group about the plan for tomorrow, er, tonight. Ate some food ASAP, then got to bed and asleep by 10:00. 12:15am wake up then got ready to leave for our hike at 1am. Yes, 1:00 Thursday morning. I am not a morning person by any stretch and I was exhausted at this point. We headed for Half Dome with all our layers on including our headlamps to light the way. Later, the full moon helped us see some parts of the trail. It was SO beautiful! I've never hiked at night before and this was sure a challenge. Partly because it's hard to actually see the trail and easy to wander off of it at times and mostly because I was so tired and got dizzy when I would turn my head. Anyway, we trekked and trekked for about 4 1/2 hours until sunrise when we made it to Quarter Dome. We didn't reach our goal to summit Half Dome at sunrise, but we were close enough. The beauty that surrounded me at that point when the sunrise was happening overshadowed the fact that we weren't on schedule. We all gathered at the foot of Half Dome until our whole group made it there since we wanted to go up the dome together. It was June 16th and the cables on Half Dome were possibly going to be up by then, but it turned out they were not "up". What that means is that the park rangers advise against going up Half Dome while the cables are "down" (they are still up on the rock attached at the top, they just haven't been attached to metal poles and made into a sort of railing to hold onto as one ascends the dome. Also they attach foot rests every 6 feet or so when the cables are up. These are basically 2x4 wood planks that are placed horizontally so one can rest their foot on it and not grip the steep dome with their shoes only). We decided to go up with the cables and sort of used the cable as a rope to pull ourselves up as we walked up it. The trick is to stand leaning back a little and grip the cable with your hands as you walk up the dome. We wore grippy gloves and also cinched ourselves in with a rope around our waists and a carabiner to attach ourselves to the cable. I was quite intimidated by the steepness of the dome when we arrived at its base and apprehensive about going up, but new that I was going to do it somehow. Our leader, Greg, helped me by climbing right behind me and gave me tips along the way. Also he was good at keeping me distracted by asking me all sorts of unrelated questions. Before I knew it I was at the top. Yay!!!
We spent about 2 glorious hours at the top of Half Dome. Soon there were a few other people that made it to the top, but for the most part we had the place to ourselves. That is the bonus of climbing Half Dome while the cables are down. It really deters a lot of people. I understand that when the cables are up there can be a long line just to wait your turn to start the climb, then there is a wall of people along the cables as you go up or down the dome. No, thank you!
We descended Half Dome around 9am, and down the mountain to Nevada Falls, then Vernal Falls, then our campground. We reached our camp by 3:00 and after a shower, dinner and a tiny pow wow for the next day's hike I was in my tent and asleep by 7:30pm. Friday was another full day of hiking, so I was thankful for many hours of sleep that night.
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