Yosemite: The only "Vistas" we need around here

Wow! This was one of the most amazing weekends of my life.

An email from a fellow intern (and wolverine) resulted in 8 of us, 3 Nvidia interns, and 1 vmware intern, driving to Yosemite national park this past friday. We stopped at REI to rent some bags and tents ( and I got a flashlight), and at the same complex I got a curry burrito that wasn't too bad.

Saturday was maybe the most physically exhaustive day of my life. Our plans were to climb Half Dome, which lays 8.2 miles of trail and about 4,800 feet of elevation away from the trailhead. We started out at 5am and didn't get back until 6pm. The whole thing was amazing! At every turn was an incredible view, or a deer, or snow, or a stream.... We'd take 10 pictures only to climb for another few minutes and find an even better vista, or a better view of the same one.


This is what the peak looks like at about 6am. Pretty high up!

On the way down we went right through the mist, and got pretty soaked.

The 8.2 miles there is almost entirely uphill. Above the treeline it is an open granite face. Here, half Dome culminates with several flights of stone switchbacks and a 400 foot stretch that requires using cables to pull/climb your way up a slope as steep as 45 degrees in certain places.



See this in flickr for some notes on it)

You have to alternate and be patient as people go up or down past each other. It was really neat to see how people on the cables, in such a scary but awesome situation, would start talking or helping each other right away. There were over 100 people on the top, and on one side an outcropping called 'The diving board' that looks like something out of a Roadrunner cartoon. Most of us ate and took a nap. Going down you really have to be paying attention, it can be a little nerve racking.


The whole group


The diving board


Sleeping at the top

On the trip down we were a little short of water, but a couple I saw near a river with a pump was nice enough to help. The only thing that could have made this hike better was a few more 13 year old boys and girls, and some green tents. Like any hike, there are personalities that want to sprint up the trail, some that get annoyed at the 78th nag to drink water, some that move more slowly, and some that take more pictures than steps. And potentially some that need to repress the instinct to say "If you were my camper, we'd be having a talk really soon." :)


(Me in front of the chains. I was running late when I thought to run back and get a Tamarack shirt. So this is my artificially symbolic way of showing that I'm thinking about T. )

We were too tired to cook the hotdogs we had bought, so we hobbled to a tiny mexican place that was actually really good I thought. And on the way back the next morning we stopped at In n Out burger! That was a great first experience there for me. I'm really lucky to be in a place where something like Yosemite is only a few hours away, and there is a large enough group around to pull together some people to go hike it.