Half Dome

My mother has had the dream of climbing Half Dome in Yosemite National Park for as long as I can remember and last year she decided that as a family we would go back and climb it. She and my Grandfather worked so hard to reserve camping spots and get the permits to climb it so that the whole family could go. It was planned over my parent's 30th wedding anniversary and so began the preparation to join her in this expedition began.
Now when I say preparation began, I mean when I thought about it I would psych myself out and need a pep talk to want to do this as all of the videos about climbing half dome talked about the different ways one could die whilst hiking Half Dome. I had every intention to hike a lot before we went and really work up my cardio routines but alas. I had been going to the gym a lot, but I was nowhere close to where I would have liked to have been before we did this. June came, and prepared or not... we were about to begin.
We arrived Monday and Half Dome was to be hiked Wednesday. We got up at 5:30 AM, ate a quick breakfast and packed our backpacks with food and water. Then we started off. This year it ended up being my mother, my brother and sister (Glen and Rachel), Jon, and I. The hike was immediately an up-mountain climb. A lot of switch backs. But holy cow. It was amazing. Breathtaking. You hike up to Vernal Falls, then Nevada Falls then to a subdome which is the base of Half Dome and then you grab hold of cables and climb the actual Half Dome...and then back down the same way totaling 16 miles with an elevation climb of over 4 thousand feet. We returned to our campsite at after 10:30 PM. Quite the day.
So first, some pictures with some explanations.


Us at the first falls, Vernal Falls.

Getting close!

Nevada Falls. Unbelievably amazing.




Nevada Falls, the second Falls we came upon.



Yeah, this isn't on zoom. My mom nearly ran into the deer as she was taking a picture of us on the trail.



This saved me. Putting snow in my hat kept me cool enough to keep going.



It was so amazingly hot once we got up past the tree line. We had run down to the last of all our water at this point and we started packing our water bottles with snow as well as turning to our idodine pills in the river for water. The snow was amazing though because it was cold.


Most of the hike was like this.



6 miles up.



You feel like you should be close, but yet we were still so far away.


You could see Half Dome for a majority of the hike, and it was amazing how far away from the Dome you hike before you start climbing UP the actual dome. For a long time it was frustrating because it seemed like it was getting further away. But at the same time every part of the hike was stunning.

Lunch. Felt like dying.



I was pretty much exhausted when we finally stopped for lunch that I had to force myself to each anything so that I could get the energy I needed back. I found this energy (REVV) packed that I had gotten from my best friend's brother a year before and I mixed it in with the few ounces of water I had left. Within ten minutes I was singing and running up the trail, which I had not done at all up to this point. It was kind of funny, and nice to feel that rush of energy in my body again.


In the last bit of shade before the hours of pure sun.


















While we waited for the cables to be finished getting put up we sat and played Phase 10 in the sun on the sub dome with Brian, a man we had met on the way up. It was at this point I started to get charlie horses. It was scary, because I  knew that I couldn't afford to get a charlie horse climbing up the dome. Brian, our new friend, gave me something for the cramps and after we played a few more games they announced that the cables were done and we all got ready to climb the last few hundred feet.

At this point I was thinking that I was proud to have gotten as far as I had and I didn't need to feel pressured in doing the last climb if I didn't want to as I was pretty scared of heights. However when I looked up at the Dome I felt very calm. It was odd, because I should have been terrified, right? Nope, completely calm. So I got up and got in line to climb it. I was very surprised by myself.

Climbing up Half Dome at the base.

After we started, I just kept my eyes on Jon's feet in front of me. I didn't look anywhere else, not once. I knew that If I lost focus I would lose it all. I couldn't afford to look anywhere else.  Every ten feet of climbing/ pulling ourselves up there was a wooden board where we could relax a bit before the next feet and at some point it was so steep that we were literally perpendicular to the rock and some points were slippery. I just watched Jon's feet, and kept calm. I wanted to cry and stop but there wasn't anywhere to go and if I cried I would have lost control of my emotions. So I just breathed.


Soooo scary, right?!  Climbing up the poles. If you slipped you would take out all of these people.

Then the scariest part. We were almost to the top, 50 feet from the top or so my foot began to slip and before I could even panic I felt my foot stay exactly where I had put it on the rock. I looked down at my foot and saw my brothers hand under my foot and heard him say "I got you." I was overcome with emotion and love. He had me, literally held my foot from slipping on this steep path. From that moment on Jon was above me with encouraging words to finish the last string and my brother was right behind me with his free hand right under my feet holding my in place with supportive words. It was such a neat moment for me.

And we made it to the top!!

Then we made it to the top! As soon as I cleared the last ridge, I couldn't hold it in any longer and I just cried. I was overcome mainly with the moments before from Glen holding my feet in place. I know my family is supportive and that my family would do anything from me, even though sometimes I don't feel that way. But I had never felt the love my brother has for me so literally and couldn't help but immediately liken that to how I feel that our Heavenly Father is not only figuratively supporting us in our lives but actually literally sometimes putting his hand out under ours to lift us in such times in our lives that we feel we may be slipping. It was really powerful. 

Then we were on our way back down. And we were tired, and it was getting late, and it was getting dark, and then it was very dark and we were climbing with head lamps on... but I kept looking up at the Half Dome behind us and I would get the chills every time. Even now thinking about it, I get choked up at the whole of the experience. During the last couple miles in the complete darkness I saw a lot of hugs bugs, and even a handful of scorpions that had me in tears because It was so scary as well, but we made it home and even more we made it through the next couple days of not being able to move because of being so sore. But it was totally worth it. He are some other spiritual lessons I learned climbing Half Dome

My crazy brother. They call this the diving board.

1. Don't put off being prepared for the future.
2. My family is right behind me.
3. Heavenly Father is aware of every moment of needs.
4. Just focus on taking one more step even if it is painful.
5. You can do so much more than you think you can.

6. Can we afford to lose our focus on anything else than our goal in life?

7. Sometimes the times when life isn't a up hill climb, it is still as hard.