Yosemite National Park, CA

On our way to Yosemite from Redwood, we stopped in Napa Valley and took a couple of wine tours.  We don’t have any pictures; we were too busy drinking and pretending like we knew anything about wine.

Afterwards, we visited with Lester’s Aunt and Uncle in Sunnyvale (refer to the Li family Reunion post for pictures).  This was our first time in a house in five weeks, which meant there was a kitchen and a bathroom and laundry that was not coin operated.  It was wonderful.

We went out for Dim Sum in the morning and I tried chicken feet.  Lester also re-tried chicken feet and still does not care for it.  The food was really good and we both enjoyed the reprieve from camping.

Yosemite is on fire.  If we hadn’t read the news reports, it still would have been obvious well before we reached the park, given the ominous cloud of smoke we saw on the horizon. 

As of now, this fire is the third largest in California’s known history, having burnt almost 250,000 acres.  Even with the devastation, most of the park is still open and the valley is, for the most part, free of smoke.  It is also free of crowds, the fire and smoke having deterred many tourists despite the Labor Day weekend.

On Monday, we hiked to the top of Half Dome.  The climb leading up to the bare granite was not too strenuous and the weather was cool and cloudy.  Once we’d passed the park ranger checking permits all that was left were the steep steps up to the cables and the cables themselves.

You cannot hike up the granite slope of Half Dome, you must pull yourself up using the cables, resting every 8 feet or so on two-by-fours spanning the metal poles.  The stone surface in between the cables is mostly worn smooth by the thousands of people who have previously climbed it.  It was easier coming back down to sit on your heels and slide in between the rest spots than to try to keep your footing.

The cables have a reputation for being frightening, which they’ve earned given that people have lost their footing and fallen to their deaths here before.   Despite this, most people climb without any safety gear.  Lester and I used some of our rock climbing equipment to tie off to the cables so that if we slipped, we wouldn’t go far.

The view from the top was beautiful and only partially obstructed by the smoke in the distance.  Although, I think that the appeal of Half Dome is not so much the view as being able to say that you survived it.

On our way up, we met a man who was hiking Half Dome for the 90^th time, with the goal of reaching 100.  He was very nice and offered us some advice and encouragement about ascending the cables.

Lester planned a three-day, 30-mile backpacking trip South of the valley that brought us out to a succession of small lakes in Yosemite’s backcountry.  This late in the summer, the park is very hot and very dry.  All of the creeks that we passed were dry rock beds or shallow pools of stagnant water and much of the trail is now a fine, dark dust.  Whoever hiked in front would send up clouds of dirt that coated the person behind.

Not wanting to camp dry, we hiked 14 miles the first day out to Royal Arch Lake.  We were tired and dirty, but thankfully the lake was full and we were able rinse enough to feel human again.

On the second day, we passed a couple of hikers coming from the opposite direction who informed us that there was no more water where they had come from.  With only three liters between us, we decided to hike out the remaining 15 miles that day.

Towards the end of our hike, I commented on how tan Lester’s legs were getting.  As it turns out, it was mostly dirt.