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Yosemite National Park
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The Death Hike
Yosemite is one of the most photographed places and there is a good reason. It's absolutely beautiful! It really is! But along with that beauty comes sweat, pain, heart-pounding, and living-life-on-the-edge experience that seems to invigorate the senses and leave one with the feeling they conquered something special. If you've ever tried to climb up from the valley floor to the top of Half Dome in one day and back down the same day, you know what I mean. My friends and I did it once, but let me tell you about that experience . . .
Okay so I wasn't in good shape, nor was I expecting to climb up to the top of Half Dome. I thought we were going for a casual hike taking some photos along the way and just to have a good time hanging out. My friends, on the other hand, had different plans to hike all the way up and back down. When we met up with them, there they were with all the hiking equipment you could ask for: rations (food), canteens, hiking clothes, and boots, etc. And there I was: a pair of shorts, tennis shoes, T-shirt, camera bag, and a cheap plastic canteen. Okay, we got up at 6 a.m. (much too early for me being a night owl) and left from Fresno, California (a city in the central valley) arriving at Yosemite roughly around 8 a.m. We started our hike (I still didn't realize yet we were planning on climbing up to the top- and I had no clue how many miles it would take to even get there) and then a couple of the guys started off walking briskly. "Hmmm," I began to wonder, "isn't this a little fast for a leisurely hike?" I finally realized we're doing the hike from hell (I called it "the death hike", afterwards). Now the sun was beating down on us and we continued to pound our shoes into the dirt moving to higher ground with each step while my feet started to ache and my leg muscles tightened up. Every step I took, as I felt the weight of my canteen and camera gear I grumbled to the others, "what in the world are you guys doing, I didn't come out to hike this #$%&# hill!" You see, these guys have a lot of pride and ego, and to them (in my opinion), climbing up this mountain made them men. Tough men. Cool bad-ass men . . . . . Whatever. I think I pissed some of the guys off with my constant complaining and cursing. I tried to get some of them to turn back with me, but no luck. So on we trekked (legs, feet, in more pain).
It's close to 2 p.m. now and we see hikers and campers descending from Half Dome as we continue our climb up the trail. The friendly folks tell us that a lightning and thunderstorm has been appearing at 3 p.m. the last couple of days and they predicted much of the same weather for the day.. "You hear that guys? Let's turn back!," I said in hopes that they would listen to reason. Unsuccessful with my second attempt to abort the hike, we continued up with my constant whining.
The trail got rockier and more dangerous near the top, but we endured. At last we got to the base of Half Dome, where there stood a cable on short poles that allows hikers to pull themselves safely to the top of Half Dome. A sign by the cable read something like this: WARNING, IF LIGHTNING STRIKES WHILE HOLDING ONTO THE CABLE, YOU WILL DIE. I looked around, saw those ominous clouds moving towards us just as the friendly folks warned us about. Okay, "that's it," I said. "I'm stopping here." Heck no, we're still going," they argued."We didn't come this far to turn back now." Two of them stayed back with me as we felt our lives were worth more than risking death just to brag "I climbed Half Dome and back in one day." The clouds at this point were moving closer and faster it seemed. We yelled for them to come back before they got stuck there. Fortunately, they made it back across the cable before the rain started to bear down upon us. Lightning and thunder soon followed. We began to run as we feared being struck by the lightning. We saw a different trail that we felt we could use to get back to the valley floor in a shorter amount of time (a horse trail). Shortly thereafter, hail began to pour down. As we sprinted one of my friends eats it face first (falls down) as he skids and slides down the trail with the mud and water filled with horse manure. I don't know how much crap he ate but it wasn't a pretty sight. Luckily he wasn't injured and we continued our run as it began getting dark. Finally we get to where we thought was the valley floor (it's almost pitch black now). Some of us got separated on the run down. We looked around, saw no one in sight, no cars, and no buildings whatsoever. Soaking wet, we started to panic a little with yells of: "HELP!!! HELP!!!, WE'RE GONNA DIE!" We continued to walk hoping to find something in the distance that looked familiar. A few minutes later, still in our wet T-shirts and shorts, we saw people walking around. "We're saved!," we thought. And soon familiar landmarks began to appear and far into the distance rested our car in the parking lot. Exhausted, we looked at each other and exclaimed, "damn, I'm not ever doing this again!" "What a stupid thing to do!," blah, blah, blah - I probably said most of it myself. Back at the car we changed into dry clothes and headed out of Yosemite. Extremely exhausted everyone in the car slept except the driver named K.C. Sleeping on the passenger front seat, I awaken for just a minute to ask K.C. if he was tired and needed someone to take over the driving for him. He replied, "no, I'm okay." So I said, "okay good." z z z z z snore z z z z z. What an experience. We can laugh about it now, but it sure wasn't funny at the time.
The images above come from a casual hike up to Yosemite Falls, not Half Dome. Click on an image for a bigger picture.
The Ego:
"In order to sustain the victory you have to prove yourself again and again in some other way, and again and again and again, driven forever to fill a false image, haunted by the fear that the image is not true and someone will find out."
Robert Pirsig, from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Links
For further information, visit: http://www.nps.gov/yose/
