Today I got up at 5.30am in order to get into the Valley as early as I could. Monday's little jaunt to Yosemite Falls was just a warm-up for this one - a trip to the top of Half Dome, 17 miles of distance and 5,000 feet of climb. (Half Dome is about 9,000 feet but the valley floor is 4,000 feet). The guide book says that this hike takes 10-12 hours...I'm not given to bragging, but if I was, just so you know, I would have to point out that I did it in 7 and a half hours and that included a lunch break at the top and a slight scenic detour on the way back down. See my updated photos for details, especially a rather hair-raising top few hundred feet, assisted by steel cables. This bit, I don't mind admitting, scared me. I was glad to get back down in one piece. One slip and it would have been, onomatopoeically peaking, screeeeeech.... bounce... bounce................. SPLAT.
Got talking to all kinds of people along the way. One American guy from Tennessee had been to the Lake District and to the Scottish isles; he was raving about them, and I felt a bit abashed to look around me at all the majesty of Yosemite and all the huge peaks and gigantic rock faces, and to think that the tallest mountain in all of England is only 3,000 feet. How can the Lakes compare with Yosemite? But on further reflection I'd have to say that Yosemite, great as it is, has more grandeur than beauty. The views are far more spectacular than those of the Lakes, but what the Lakes lacks in scale, it makes up for in line and colour, symmetry and proportion. I'm glad to have seen Yosemite but I think when I get back to England I will do a lot more hill walking and perhaps appreciate it all a bit more than I used to.
I have found a better food shop than the one I was previously patronising, so for the first time in about a week I'll be able to cook myself a meal which I'm not ashamed to name. (It's hot dogs.) However disaster has struck at the resort cafe: the one decent beer they had, Mothership Wit (see previous entry), has run out. Curses. Plus, the internet is free here, but all they have are two fairly old Apple Macs; and because it's free, the laws of supply and demand fail to kick in properly and you can never get near the computers. So apologies again for being less than forthcoming with email replies. However you can be assured that everything is gratefully received and read with interest.
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| Yosemite Point, seen from Half Dome |
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| Half Dome - the last bit is the trickiest |
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| A creature on top of a mountain |
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| Tolkienesque |
