Juri, Frank and I decided to "play" the lottery on Monday so we can get the permission to hike Half Dome on Wednesday. There were some difficulties with Frank´s day off but in the end everything was how it was supposed to be. Frank got a day off. We won the permissions.
On Tuesday in the morning we went to buy some very needed things like headlights, gloves, food etc.. and then arround 10am hit the road to the Yosemite NP. I was the driver again- because I can function perfectly with almost no sleep at all.
We "booked" a place in the nearest campsite, cooked some sausages on a fire and got ourselves ready for sleep at around 7pm. The plan was to wake up at 11.45pm and hit the road around 12.30pm so we can be at the top of Half Dome with the sunrise.
We were probably more tired than we thought because Frank woke us up around 12.45pm (the alarm clock wasn´t working) so eventually we started at 1.15am.
We put the headlights on our foreheads, packed our backpacks with gallon of water each, some snack bars and fruits and the rest of the food and cosmetics put into the bearboxes near the parking lot. (There are bears everywhere in Yosemite so it is against the law to leave anything eatable in the car)
It was super scary! Three backpackers. The woods. The darkness. The bears. I was really almost crying how scares I was and really wanted to turn away and go back to the safest place around- car.
But Frank and Juri were playing like everything is alright and there are no bears at all bla bla bla... I knew anyways that they are scared to death as well as I was.
The beggining was the worst. I don´t know why but everytime when I start hiking I am dying at the beginning! I couldn´t catch my breath and it was not even that steep at all. I was really thinking about going back. But fortunatelly I overcame that.
We were hiking during the night for almost 5 hours and it was not as hard as I expected. It was more difficult on our psychical skills rather than physical and personaly for me the elevation was not good for my dizziness at all. It was so dark that I couln´t see anything other than meter or two in front of me so I really didn´t know where am I going, But that was actually good as I found out when we were on our way back during the day because if I saw where am I going I would´t go there for sure.
We reached the top at 6.05am, it was freezing, we were tired and hungry but it was all worth the view! Sunrise on the top of the Half Dome was truly stunning!
On our way back it was crazy hot so it was actually he best idea to do the hike during the night- If we hiked it during the day one gallon of water wouldn´t be enugh for sure.
Why is it better to hike Half Dome during the night:
* You can see the sunrise from the top
* You don´t need that much water as during the day (so gallon is actually enough)
* You won´t get tired as easily (because of the temperature)
* You don´t have to "share" the trail with other people (just bears)
* You can´t see where are you going so eventho you are scared of heights you can climb it
* Especially on the cables you can take your time as you need it because there is nobody else
* You can see the beautiful sky FULL of stars
* Nobody will find it weird if you´re screamimg on bears during all way up
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