Finally I hiked Half Dome! Not just a hike. It's a night hike! I went on the trip with ODC and Sierra Club group. At mid-night of July 18th and under a brilliant full moon, we departed from Curry Village at Yosemite Valley and I hiked to the summit of Half Dome at 5:50am and took the Mist trail back to valley around 1:30pm. It's a 17 miles hike (I still doubt about the accuracy of the distance) and it took me 13 hours! The goal is the summit and the idea is to witness the glorious sunrise. I pushed myself pretty hard on the last part to ensure I will summit in time to catch the sunrise. I made it ride on time! 5:50am! The sun rose behind the mountains. By the time it emerged out of the mountains, it's risen far from the horizon. We didn't get to witness the early stage of sunrise. Hiking out seems to take forever. I made through narrow stair trails along the Nevada Fall and Vernal Fall. The Fall is beautiful and the crowd is crazy! The Half Dome trail is so far the busiest trail I've ever hiked! The Fall part of the trail is very touristy. I stopped at river and took a nap and stopped at the fall to take some photos. I smelled the flowers along the way. It was around 1:30pm when I got back to super hot and stuffy tent cabin.
During the weekend trip, I stayed at a tent cabin in Curry Village at the Valley for 3 nights. We tried to get some sleep during the day time. The heat and noise made it hard to fall asleep in the tent. I found peace and breeze at the meadow near to the Merced river.
Yosemite is beautiful. The fun part of the trip was bike ride at valley. I would like to ride through the park again some day. The bad part of the trip? crowd and heat!
What matters is that I summitted the Half Dome ( Now I can cross out one more trail from my list) in time and I was there to witness the sunrise.
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