Women On A Mission!

I am fortunate enough to live in a ward where there are lots of active women. One of the sisters in my ward asked if anyone was interested in hiking Half Dome in Yosemite with her. This is no small task. In about 8 miles you gain about 4800 feet in elevation bringing you to well over 8,000 feet. Of course, after you pull yourself up the side of a cliff hanging onto cables, you have to go back down. This ends up being roughly 16 miles. There were 16 of us who decided to take on this arduous task. All of our awesome, supportive husbands agreed to stay home with the kids from Friday afternoon on August 28th until Sunday afternoon August 30th. What an opportunity! We stayed at a hotel, got up bright and early, conquered the mountain, and headed home the next day. It was so cool! Yeah, it was hard, but so worth it. I actually ended up hiking most of the way with Jenn Collins, the girl who organized this whole thing in the first place. We both had knee issues and were a perfect match. The cable part really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. The crappy part was just waiting an hour on the cables to get up because there were so many people there at the same time.

We had the hardest time trying to get a decent timed photo. We had four different cameras going off at different times and cameras that wouldn't stay put. It was so funny I had stomachache and a headache from all of the laughing.

Get these women away from their families and responsibilities and they turn into a bunch of screaming little girls who jump on beds and have as much fun as possible.

On the trailhead at 6:15 a.m. with Jenn P., Susan D., and Jenn C.

Pointing to our destination, Half Dome 8.2 miles. We met a guy who was headed off on his own to backpack all the way to Mount Whitney---211 miles. We got on his case about not having a hiking buddy, so later when we ran into him again he showed us he met some cool guys to hike with. Safety in numbers!

Taking a break at Vernal Falls.

Almost the whole hike was either climbing stairs or climbing a dirt trail that just went up, up, up.

Vernal Falls was pretty cool.

Jenn C. and me with Half Dome in the background.

Ya think?

This part was a bit freaky, but cool. More stairs.

"The ants go marching one by one..."

The pile of discarded gloves at the bottom of the cables. If you forgot yours you could take your chances with these...

This was more of a test in patience to see how long we could hang on to the cables while waiting for all these slow pokes to get up the rock. Some people didn't feel like waiting so they climbed up the outside and cut in. That didn't help things any. Others decided to completely lose their marbles and climb a good 20 feet away from the cables and just hope their shoes had good traction. STUPID!!!

I conquered Half Dome! Unfortunately, there was a big forest fire at the moment so the air was all smoky and we couldn't truly appreciate the view. Sad.

Cody S. was brave enough to look over the edge. Not I.

The trip up was taxing on the heart and lungs and made your legs burn. The trip down was a test for the knees. Jenn and I used poles and took it very slow. Every time we rested I tried to get my feet and knees elevated and just kept taking my ibuprofen. Not too bad, but we were feeling it about 2 days later.

That's where I was, way up there. The trip was a little longer than we anticipated. We parked a little further from the trailhead than planned, so that added about 2 miles to the trip. Jenn and I opted to take the John Muir trail back down instead of the Mist trail. Better on the knees, but almost 2 miles longer. So all in all, we probably hiked almost 20 miles. It took us about 12 1/2 hours. Go girls!