October 7th-10th, 2016
We don’t have a fall break at UBC so over Canadian Thanksgiving weekend I like to get out of the city. By October the weather in Vancouver is awful and I’m feeling homesick. There’s not enough time for a flight over to the east coast so this year I flew to San Francisco to meet my friend Elaine. I got to see a bit of San Fran and Berkeley before we drove to Yosemite National Park and did a two-day hiking trip up to the top of Half Dome.
For our first day on the road, Elaine and I were back in her car to drive from Berkeley to Yosemite. I managed to mess up the navigation and we drove almost an hour out of the way towards the wrong park entrance. When we finally made it down into Yosemite valley and found a parking spot, it was getting a bit late in the day. We walked over to try and find our camp spot. Elaine is a really dope person and very much a go-getter. She had gotten our camp permit set up for one night up near Half Dome and we got one night before and after at a Backpacker’s Camp in the valley.
We really couldn’t find the Backpacker’s Camp. We looked all over to no avail. We found a couple tents together near the back of the campsite you rent by the spot. We managed to set up our tent in between two paid for and reserved spots. And we didn’t even know how to set up the tent properly so it was all around embarrassing. Once we realized the Backpacker’s Camp was down a trail we grabbed everything and scurried over.
We woke up bright and early and packed up everything into our bear canister (!!!) and backpacks and set off for the trail. We took the Mist trail up past Vernal and Nevada falls all the way to Half Dome.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so unprepared for something in my life. We overpacked water (maybe 3? 4? litres each for a one night trip) but it was our first ever backpacking experience AND we didn’t have a water filter so I don’t really blame us. But I struggled going up the inclines and all the stairs. My legs felt like jello.
We climbed pretty high and finally came to the intersection of trails where we could camp for the evening. We pitched our tent and lied down for a bit. We left everything but the valuables and then headed up to summit Half Dome.
This part of the hike was much more difficult but it felt great not to have all the weight. Then things got tricky. The terrain became all rock face and there were little steps cut into the side of the rock. Falling would bring you tumbling all the way back down to the treeline. And it got worse once we spotted the end of the trail.
To get to the tippy top of Half Dome there were only two cables coming down from the top, lifted up on rickety poles with a wooden plank running between each pair of poles. I swear some parts of the climb felt like an 80 degree incline. We would pull ourselves on the cables and pause on the wooden planks. It got especially precarious when we’d pass hikers coming down and we have to scoot over to one side. There were at least two points Elaine and I both contemplated turning back because it felt dangerous. Call it courage or idiocracy but we made it to the top to see all of Yosemite valley.
The way back down the cables was more terrifying. But we made it back to our tent and had Clif bars and bagels for dinner. We packed up our bear canister and stashed it away from our tent. Then we had the most embarrassing evening of either of our lives.
We were chatting before falling asleep when we heard SNIFFING outside our tent. We became silent and waited for it to move away but it DIDN’T. We lied there in stunned silence absolutely horrified. We couldn’t figure out what it could be but our imaginations were convinced it was bears. Our next plan of action was to yell and hit the sides of the tent to scare the animal(s) away. It didn’t work. I volunteered to stick my head out the tent but I wasn’t wearing my contacts so it’d be useless. As a last resort, we decided to yell for help to the two men that were down the hill from us. We are #embarrassing. We yelled and a minute later we heard voices and saw a flashlight so we rushed out and explained the situation. Two #kind gentlemen then carried our tent down the hill and put it between theirs because we are #scaredycats. We slept fine after that and left them a thank you note in the morning. We still have absolutely no idea what was outside our tent. I like to think it was a family of bears but it was probably just deer.
We then had a fairly easy hike back down with no surprises. We even got to dump the extra water we had to lighten our packs. And then it was back in the car to return to Berkeley and then Vancouver for me.
A special thank you to Elaine, my adventure buddy, for taking the reins on all of our outdoor explorations and for putting up with me in the wild. I can’t wait for the next big adventure with you.