Travel: Trading duct tape and Deet for Californian granite and cables Travel: Trading duct tape and Deet for Californian granite and cables (November 17, 2004)

By Jennifer Nuckols

Special to the Almanac

Having grown up in the Midwest, my outdoor adventures have been mainly limited to duct-taping shut my pant legs and sleeves in an attempt to thwart tick invasion, slathering every exposed body part in toxic bug repellant, and meandering through tangible humidity in lush, yet excruciatingly flat, forests.

This summer, my first-ever spent entirely in California, I decided to trade duct tape and Deet for a night without sleep and a 17-mile hike -- half of it in the dark -- to the 8,842-foot peak of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.

People may wonder what would motivate someone to carry his or her body through a 4,800-foot elevation change over rocks, stairs, and cables by the light of the moon, in order to gaze from the top of an oversized granite monolith. Yet the hunger for Half Dome drives what park officials estimate to be more than 2,000 people to the summit every year.

California naturalist and conservationist John Muir was the ninth person to reach Half Dome's summit, and he called attention to Yosemite by fighting for it to achieve national park status, which it did in 1890.

Half Dome was enticing enough for a group of 15 of us-- from age 16 to 26, with hiking experience varying from professional to "none at all" -- to leave Palo Alto in three cars at 6 p.m. on a Friday in July and brave Bay Area rush-hour weekend traffic to reach our mountain destination.

The weekend's full moon was the reason we had picked this date for our hike; we hoped that its light would be enough to make the night path clear. The farther we drove, the higher the bloated moon crawled above the horizon.

Midnight marked our entrance onto the trail and the group quickly split into different-paced groups. The first major struggle we confronted was the colossal 600-step granite staircase that ascends the side of Vernal Falls along the appropriately termed "mist trail." Those stairs made all previous experiences I have had sprinting up Stanford stadium feel like a jog.

When I finally stumbled my way to the top, I was rewarded with a dramatic view from the top of Vernal Falls. At that point a fellow hiker said that he wished that he were a poet so that he could come up with something better to say than "that's cool." The words felt hollow, but I suspect that even a poet would struggle to find words to describe the elegance of standing directly above the top of a 317-foot waterfall and watching it gush down the sheer face below with the moonlight reflecting off the surrounding cliffs.

The stunning vistas of moon-lit mountain crevices that we absorbed all the way up the 8.5-mile trail looked more like sets out of a 1960s movie than real rock formations.

But the sensation of taking in exquisite panoramas is only one of the great draws of the hike to Half Dome. Another appeal is feeling keenly alive as your heart, muscles and breathing strain to drive your body upward. It's a much more invigorating workout than, say, running on an indoor treadmill, especially because it is compounded with inhaling mountain air -- air that John Muir described as being "as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue."

Another one of my favorite perks of trail hiking is the ready excuse to stop for a snack. The dried apricots, oranges, granola, almonds, Cliff bars and red grapes made the hike even more enjoyable -- or so it seemed in the moment.

Avoiding Yosemite's Disneyland-like crowds is one of the many reasons for hiking at night, but one slight disadvantage is that you are never 100 percent sure that you're on the right trail. Every intersection was fraught with some apprehension because one member of our group had previously attempted to hike Half Dome in the dark and ended up at an entirely different peak. The moon was mostly sufficient but the head lamps that some members of our crew brought along were indispensable at certain points, such as the times we lost the trail.

We finally arrived at the spot commonly referred to as "the shoulder": a haul up 600 feet of extremely steep steps and rocks. These steps differ from the first colossal staircase because when you reach them, you are at a point of greater fatigue and altitude than before.

I had felt more or less confident of my pace the whole way up, but not long after I hit these final steps, my stomach began to react unkindly to all those great trail snacks. The nausea would not pass.

After the stairs, the last obstacle before the summit was the stretch of cables. I had heard that they were easier than the stairs and was relieved to get to their base, until I saw the two parallel wires that appeared to be shooting at an 90 degree angle straight up into the sky. With wariness I picked an unmatched pair of worn-out gloves from the large pile of hand gear provided by the park and grabbed the first foot of the 900 feet of cable in front of me.

Only later did park spokesman and ranger Scott Gediman tell me that "no one has fallen off the cables to their death," knowledge that would have made the final ascent a little more enjoyable. My only comfort in the moment was knowing that if I slipped and fell there were at least 10 people lined up below me, and surely one, or all of them, would break my fall before I hit the bottom.

The first person who attempted to reach the top of the dome was John Conway in the early 1870s, says John Muir in his book, "The Yosemite." He took with him his little sons who "climbed smooth rocks like lizards," and barefoot, they made it only a third of the way up the rock, using a rope and eye-bolts, before desisting. In 1875, Scotchman George Anderson was the first man to reach the summit, a task he accomplished by pulling himself up with ropes that he secured with wooden pegs and eye-bolts that he drilled into the granite. According to John Muir, he would rest "his foot on the last bolt while he drilled a hole for the next above."

The Sierra Club installed the first double handrail, made of steel posts and steel cables, in 1919, and the Civilian Conservation Corps replaced it in 1934.

Even with the cables and the gloves that provided a more secure grip, the climb was intensely difficult, especially because I was fighting nausea. I kept praying that it would go away, and finally it did: Vomiting was instant relief, and I practically bounded up the final section to reach the top.

Quick disclaimer: Although I'm not necessarily naturally athletic, I consider myself active and in decent shape. My muscles weren't feeling fatigued, so I prefer to attribute the incident to altitude sickness. Someone tried to tell me that altitude sickness only strikes above 10,000 feet, but the scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ascertain that "altitude illness can effect anyone, regardless of age or physical condition, in altitudes above 6,000 feet." I'll choose that explanation.

The large, flat expanse of the summit was stunning, yet coldly uncomfortable until the sun rose. I'm embarrassed to say that I actually missed the sunrise; I think that I was curled up in a crevice, unsuccessfully trying to warm myself with a space blanket -- a thin Mylar sheet that looked like it was made of aluminum foil -- so that I could nap.

At the top I visited with Paul and Sarah Gilman of Palo Alto. This couple first climbed Half Dome the summer they were engaged. Now, to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, they hiked it together again. Two of their daughters were in our group, and when we all met up at the top, they snapped some family pictures. Their sense of adventure, their toughness, and their romance, inspired me.

After a little less than two hours, we began the descent. I'm pretty sure I burned off whatever traction was left on the bottom of my Asics as I held onto the cables and slid backwards down the smooth granite. It was scarier than going up and the girl behind me tackled the challenge by actually sliding down on her rear. My wrists hurt at the bottom from having so furiously grasped the cables at my side.

Because the scenery looks so different in the light of day, I felt as if we were discovering an entirely new location the whole way down.

Close to the base, about half of our group decided to find some respite in a quick dunk in the river. Although the water was numbing, immersing my head was instant relief. We were back in the parking lot by 12:30 p.m., almost exactly 12 hours after our departure.

In January, Half Dome's beauty, severity, romance and its place in the Californian consciousness will be captured for the entire nation when the new California quarter is released. It features John Muir and a California condor set against the backdrop of Half Dome with the words "Yosemite Valley" below it.

Every time you look at the back of your new California quarter, be grateful that you don't have to confront ticks, mosquitoes and suffocating humidity in order to enjoy the beauty of your state's wildness. And be grateful for those who have preserved it. I, for one, am now a California and a Yosemite convert. I even bought myself an Ansel Adams poster: "Moon and Half Dome." I can't wait to hike it again. And if they were able to fit a John Muir quote on the back of the quarter, I hope that they would have picked this one: "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. ... The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

Jennifer Nuckols was a summer intern at the Almanac this year and is now a senior at Stanford, where is a history major.

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