Half Dome

My first time doing Half Dome as an actual backpacking trip instead of a single long day — full pack on, permit in hand, starting up the Mist Trail on the afternoon of the 14th. Vernal and Nevada Falls were both running strong, and hauling a full overnight load past them made even the familiar stone steps feel like a completely new hike.

Made camp at Little Yosemite Valley that evening, the first time actually spending the night out there instead of pushing straight through. Packed up early the next morning and continued up past Sub Dome, the permit checkpoint sign marking the start of the real climbing, before the cables came into view rising straight up the dome's bare granite face.

The cables themselves delivered the same intensity as ever — steep, exposed granite, wooden boards underfoot, and a slow, careful pull all the way to the top. The summit was every bit as good as I remembered from past trips, but this time it felt different: Yosemite Valley spread out below, El Capitan and the far canyon walls catching the morning light, and the satisfaction of having carried everything I needed for the whole trip up there myself.

Back down the cables and down to camp at Little Yosemite Valley to eat, pack up, and start the hike out to the Valley floor — a long second day, but a good tired by the time we reached the car and started the drive home. An amazing experience all around, and a genuinely different way to take on a mountain I thought I already knew well.

The most ambitious Half Dome trip yet: we left the trailhead in the evening on July 1st with a plan to hike straight through the night and reach the summit for sunrise. Good company for it too — a group of people just as into hiking as I am, which made the whole overnight push feel more like an adventure than an endurance test.

Past Vernal and Nevada Falls in the dark, headlamps cutting through the mist off the waterfalls, then up through Little Yosemite Valley under a sky absolutely packed with stars. We stopped for photos at the permit sign at Sub Dome, then kept climbing — and when we reached the base of the cables, we just went for it in the dark, headlamps on, picking our way up the same steep granite that's intimidating enough in daylight.

We topped out well before sunrise and hung out for a while near where the trail crests onto the summit, waiting as the sky slowly changed from black to deep blue to that first orange line on the horizon. Watching the sun actually break over the Sierra crest from the top of Half Dome, after a full night of hiking to get there, is genuinely one of the best experiences I've had on any trail.

Once it was light, we spent time out on the diving board and the visor overhang — standing, sitting, lying right at the edge, taking in Yosemite Valley and Tenaya Canyon from every angle we could find. A truly epic version of a hike I'd already done three times before, and somehow still the best one yet.

Third time up Half Dome, and the cables were the most crowded I've ever seen them — a slow, steady line of hikers strung out the entire length of granite, everyone waiting their turn on the same two steel cables. Same route in past Vernal and Nevada Falls and up through Little Yosemite Valley, but this time in the full heat and traffic of a late-July Saturday.

Partway up, my foot slipped on the smooth, sun-baked granite for a second — nothing dangerous, I had a solid grip on the cable and caught myself right away, but it was enough to get my heart pounding for the rest of the climb. A few people near me on the cables were clipped in with climbing harnesses, and in that moment I understood the appeal a lot more than I had on the way up.

Once up on top, it was worth every minute of the wait in line, slip and all. The overhanging visor at the edge of the summit had its usual crowd of people carefully inching out for photos above Yosemite Valley, and the view down into Tenaya Canyon toward Clouds Rest was as good as it's ever been from up there — bare granite domes and forested canyon stretching out for miles under a clear summer sky.

Made it back down to Curry Village that evening for a beer and pizza, easily one of the better parts of the day, and ended up talking with a few people I recognized from the cables earlier — including some of the ones climbing with harnesses. They said it made them feel a lot safer on the exposed stretches, and after that slip earlier, I understood exactly why. I've still never climbed Half Dome with a harness myself, but I came away from that conversation thinking there's no wrong answer here — do whatever actually makes you feel better on that rock.

Second permit, and this time we made a deliberate call to start in the afternoon instead of the usual crack-of-dawn approach — the plan was to hit the cables in the golden evening light and take our time enjoying the summit without the usual morning crowds. It worked exactly as hoped: the light on the way up past Vernal Fall was still full and bright, and by the time we reached the base of the cables, the crowds had thinned out to almost nobody.

We came down the cables just before dark, the granite lit up gold and pink in the last direct light of the day, which might be the single best lighting I've seen on that rock. The tradeoff was obvious and expected: we walked almost the entire way back to the Valley floor in the dark, headlamps on, picking our way down through Little Yosemite Valley long after the sun was gone.

That's also where things got interesting — we ran into bears on the trail near Little Yosemite Valley in the dark, close enough to feel it. We'd planned on refilling water at the river down there, but between the bears and the hour, we made the easy call to just keep moving instead and stretch what we had left the rest of the way out. A completely different version of Half Dome than the first trip — same mountain, same cables, but an entirely different kind of adventure once the sun went down.

In May 2018, I finally landed a permit for Half Dome — the hike everyone talks about when they talk about Yosemite. The route follows the Mist Trail past Vernal and Nevada Falls, both roaring with spring runoff, then keeps climbing through Little Yosemite Valley and up the endless stone steps of the Sub Dome before the real test begins: the cables.

The cables are exactly as intimidating as everyone says — a few hundred feet of bare, steep granite with only two steel cables and some wooden boards to hang onto. Pulling yourself up that last stretch, legs shaking, is unlike anything else I'd done. The summit made it worth every bit of it: standing out on the overhang with all of Yosemite Valley spread out below, El Capitan in the distance, was one of those views that's genuinely hard to process while you're standing in it.