Stairway to Hell

Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been on a few more trips collecting stories. Two weekends ago I went to Yosemite to hike Half Dome. Actually, I originally just went to hang out with friends, but my pride got the better of me and I wound up hiking 18 miles up to an elevation of 8,646 feet. I made the mistake of bragging that I’d hiked the Peruvian Andes around the campfire the night before. I said that since I’ve climbed the Andes and the tallest mountains in both Utah and Colorado, how hard could some little hill in California be? I couldn’t figure out why the boy I was relating my previous hikes to was just nodding with a smirk on his face. Later that night, as I was once again spouting off about how easy this alleged hike would be, when my friend came up to me, clasped me on the shoulder and whispered that I should ease back as it really is a difficult hike and that I might not even be able to finish it. He added that the boy I was talking to didn’t finish the hike the previous year and actually bled from every single one of his ten toes, his heels, and the tops of his feet. Since the my friend runs about 5-10 miles a day without sweating, I realized I might want to tone down my usual competitive banter.

The maps say that the hike usually takes about 10-12 hours. We woke up at 4:30am so we’d be there before the sun heated up the rocks and the cables become crowded. We also were trying to beat the group of marathon runners from our campsite that were waking up at 5am. I won’t detail the lack of sleep from the night before as I slept upon rock hard dirt with no pad and was entertained by screaming kids for most of the night. The grueling start of the trail was three and a half miles of stone stairs. I started mouthing “I HATE YOU” to my two guy friends every time they turned around to see if I was keeping up. I think it was the combo of the strenuous hike and the fact they were crop dusting the trail with noxious fumes that were probably the result of cheap beer and too many smores the night before. The first nine miles are really just straight up. There are a variety of terrain changes throughout the climb like stone steps, a million switchbacks, and then just basically just scaling a rock using a cable. I honestly thought I was going to die. The only thing that kept me going was my bad 80’s mix on my ipod and the fact that I’d bragged so much the night before that I couldn’t possibly swallow my pride and quit.

The only part of the whole thing that I enjoyed was the last quarter mile when you have to scale the dome using gloves and holding onto a cable while tackling the 70 degree incline on one large rock. The only reason this was fun for me is because I’m not really afraid of death. Those of you who know me have seen me drive and can vouch for this fact. I don’t care about dying, and if I were to have let go of a cable or slipped, that is exactly what would have happened. Plus, I rock climbed in college and got over my fear of heights. The boys, however, were both terrified of heights and that mere fact almost made it worth the trip. That last quarter mile I got to mock them on the cables while they shook and looked petrified. I basked in their fear and shaking limbs while they clung to cables with poorly fitting gloves…it was almost worth the 8.75 miles of the grueling climb in their jet contrails.

In order to keep our lead on the marathoners that were close behind us, we ran back down the trail after we finished the assent portion of the hike. My legs were numb at this point, so it wasn’t as bad as I thought. All in all, we did the whole hike in 5 hours and 30 minutes. I’m not one for marathons or triathlons because that kind of punishing race doesn’t appeal to my lazy nature. After this hike, I feel like I can understand the kind of satisfaction that comes from completing one of them. Of course, I couldn’t walk for three days and still have blisters that are healing on my feet. Sometimes I think of myself as tough, and then I remember who I really am. I am the girl that only does about 45 min on the elliptical and watches the calorie counter the whole time trying to figure out how many cals I have to burn to cover the roll of Thin Mints I ate for lunch. I’m not the sleep- on-the-ground-and-run/powerhike-18-miles kind of girl.