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Published: October 16th 2012
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Half Dome
View of Half Dome from Glacier Point Bishop to Yosemite
We left Bishop and headed for Yosemite through the steep Tigoa pass. This road is only open for a few months a year because of the snow. Jane check the weather and it was forecasted for -2degrees so after much debate the group opted to pay extra to stay in a hostel rather than brave the weather in a tent.
We had a picnic by a gorgeous lake, Tenaya lake, with amazing views of the Rocky Mountains, tall evergreens and clear blue skies.There are bears and mountain lions here. I hope we see a bear.
We did a little hike down to see the giant secoyia trees. There was a hollow fallen one that I wanted to climb through, but Chris wouldn't let me because of the rat virus that is going around in these parts.We got to the hostel and had to split into male/female dorms. It was nice to be warm and comfy, even though we had to sleep separately. We cooked chicken tacos.
Hiking Glacier Rock
This was our big hiking day in Yosemite. Instead of having tour food, we bought a hot breakfast at the hostel cafe. We packed sandwiches and snacks. The Glacier point hike was 4.4miles (7kms) each way and was a 3km elevation. There were 5 of us that went up, Lyar (cute German girl), Brian and Marie (honeymooners from Northern Ireland), Mattieus (older Swiss guy, we called Papa Bear) and us.
I should also mention everyone else in the tour. There is Nicola (London girl), Jamie/Shenae (English couple), Verena (German girl travelling with Lyar) and Claudia (the fifth element).
We took 3 hours to get up and 2 to get back down. We took it nice and easy with plenty of photo and jelly bean stops. The views were spectular on the way up. There were 3 switch backs of steep climbs and you could see the valley floor fading away.
The big tall evergreens became eye level and we finally made it to the top of the world where we could see the famous half dome. I have never seen anything like it...a landscape of mountains made of rock that rolled on as far as you could see in all directions. We could see where the now dry waterfalls had carved their way through the rock. There are big black ravens that circle over head and remind you that it would be so easy to get lost out in this remote wilderness and become food for scavengers!
On the way down, we had only gone about 50m when Brian tripped on a rock and sprained his ankle. It was so lucky that we were at the top and not half way down the track, so they went back up and hitched a ride down the mountain. I was a bit freaked out and made sure I concentrated on every step down to protect my knee. Going down was pretty tough too and by the time we got to the bottom my feet were pretty sore. But we did it and it was awesome!
We had hotdogs for dinner and did some laundry then crashed out at around 10.
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