Day 60, 0 PCT miles, ~10 JMT miles

I woke up today ready to conquer Half Dome! I left my tent set up with just my sleeping pad inside, put the bear can a safe distance away in some bushes, and took my backpack with my sleeping bag inside it and some snacks and water for the morning and headed up the mountain trail! I felt so great with my extra light pack!

Still don’t get where I’m supposed to ascend!?

I didn’t see anybody coming down on my way up, and I only passed two older hikers going up as well. I heard the Half Dome is very popular, but I figured that everyone doing it as a day hike would have to leave from and return to the valley! Since I slept so close I had a huge head start! The couple I passed had started at 1:30am from way down in the valley floor!

Soon I passed where the ranger station would usually be checking permits. Since it was still early (before 7:00am), no one was there, but I figured I’d see someone on the way down. Immediately after that the trail became some steps (and sometimes just small scratches) carved into the steep granite.

The path (not for the faint of heart)

I remember thinking “This would be pretty scary for a lot of people...”, and I hadn’t even seen ANYTHING yet! After a few scrambles up some steep granite, the trail crested up and over a mini dome. The view from the top was unreal! A bunch of hikers, who had hiked through some of the night to catch sunrise at the top of the Dome, were now coming down the almost vertical side-face on the cables! They looked like a bunch of little ants! 

Half Dome cables

Sunrise crew descending

I got down to the bottom and waited for the last few hikers to get off of the cables. It was finally my turn! Guys, there’s a lot of pictures coming, because this was such an amazing 1/2 mile of “trail!” The path was much steeper than I imagined, and it required you to pull your body weight up to each step with your arms. There are wooden planks every 10 feet or so, and I found myself resting quite often. I included some pictures below of how steep the side really is. I was thankful I could take my time going up and taking pictures as no one was directly behind me!

The cables

Looking back down at Sub Dome (the small hump before the cables begin)

STEEP!!

There were a few people at the very top coming down that I passed near the end of the cables, and then I was up there all by myself!! I couldn’t believe it, what perfect timing! I cracked open one of the beers I had packed out from Tuolumne and soaked in all the amazing views!

Looking down into the valley

Waaaaaaay down...

Beautiful

As I was about to go down, there were another couple of people coming back up, and there were also a few people at the very bottom, so I was able to get my picture taken at both!

At the top

In the middle, nobody else on the cables!

At the bottom


When I got to the bottom, I realized that there had been a bunch of loaner gloves that I could’ve used, but I went up and down with my bare hands!

What a great experience! Like I’ve said, I’m really glad that the timing worked out so well and that I was able to hit it when no one was there! I’m also happy that I was able to get a permit so easily, and that the permit system exists! Check out this picture pre-2010 before the permit system existed and the Dome would see over 1000 people a day, making the line to go up and down close to an hour:

Picture found on internet

The path back down from sub-dome

After I got back to the trail, the throngs and throngs of people that started from the valley started coming up. I saw SO many people coming up! I flew down the trail to get back to my tent that was still pretty stealthily set up, and was pleased to discover no squirrels or marmots were hanging out inside.

It was still before 10:00am and I had the rest of the day to hike down into the Yosemite Valley and then to hitch out to meet Claire! The trail went down down and down! I ended up taking the Mist Trail steeply down through Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls. It was so beautiful!!

At this point there were hundreds and hundreds of day hikers coming up the steep trail as I was coming down but I still managed to catch some great pictures of the scenery, and some of them!! 

Lots of people on the narrow trail!

Favorite pic of the day, visitors in the rainbow bubble

Trail of the Mist

Aptly named!

The bottom of the Mist Trail flattened out a bit after the waterfalls, and soon I hit the Happy Isles trailhead! I somehow missed a picture of the trailhead sign, but I found one online. John Muir Trail completed!!

211 mile John Muir Trail complete!!

Looking up at Half Dome from the parking lot!

I walked to the Half Dome Village, (used to be named Curry Village), and went into the outfitter there and saw RJ working there, one of the rad dudes I had met near Lyell River just before walking into Yosemite. From there I waited for the free shuttle to take me to Yosemite Valley Lodge to get a beer and a burger!

The packed shuttle!

Oh yeah!!

After entering a food coma, I decided it was time to hitch back out of the park. I got a pretty quick hitch at first but only out to the main road as the person was just doing a loop to try and find parking in the Valley. The second leg was actually quite a difficult hitch, but at least I had a great view from the road! I was out on the main road leading out of the park for probably around an hour! Lots of cars were passing but no one was stopping! As I was just about to give up and schedule a ride with the Yosemite Bus, a great couple from France picked me up!

El Cap

Best views to hitch to...

The awesome French couple!

Those two are about a month into a 45 day US trip! They rented a car and have been covering a LOT of ground! They’ve mainly been sleeping in the car or camping to save $$. They’ve been all over the east coast, Glacier and Yellowstone, all over the Southwest, to the four corner states, and have just been having a blast! I told them a lot about the PCT, and they are very interested in hiking it one day! They took me all the way to Cathedral Lakes, which is just a couple miles from Tuolumne Meadows. 

I actually got the last ride pretty quickly! It was this guy named Justin and his dog named Amelia, driving through the park in a great old Westfalla! Justin is from New Mexico and lives in his van while he has been working all summer here in Yosemite felling trees for the park.

Amelia

Our pit stop to let Amelia run around

Justin dishing out the sweet belly rub

He was going North from the park, and was able to drop me off at Lee Vining. By that time it was nearing 5:00pm, and Claire was ahead of schedule on her drive down from Portland. I was able to contact her and decided I would just wait in the town near the information center and connect to some WiFi to finally upload some of my blog!

Before I knew it my baby was there to pick me up! It is so good to see her and I’m so very happy that she’s taken the time to drive down from Portland and hang out with me for a few days! 

We drove to Mammoth where we checked into a motel that I had reserved online. I won’t mention the name of the place, but it was a horrible waste of time! The room wasn’t ready for us, there was only one cleaning person who was way behind and they were trying to still clean rooms at 7pm! The person at the front desk said they would clean our room themselves, and they soon led us into a room which had dirty and disheveled blankets and sheets, hair still on the pillows, open beer and cups still on the counter, and just all around really filthy. She said she would have her boss give me a discount the next day but we had already seen enough! We bolted out of there, after wasting about an hour of our time. We headed over to the Motel 6 and they saved the day! 

Anyway, all is good and I am reunited with Claire! I plan on taking 5 days off with her which I won’t be counting towards my PCT thru-hike. I’ll make another blog update around Saturday and I’ll be headed back out onto the trail on Sunday afternoon after Claire heads back up towards Portland! 

Thanks for reading!!