Yosemite/Half Dome

Yosemite has always been somewhere I’ve wanted to visit. The mountains look so stunning and majestic, I just had to go. When I started looking into it, there was one hike that was screaming my name. I wanted to climb Half Dome. Why you ask? well because it looked like the sketchiest hike in the Park of course. Couple that with the views, it was the clear choice. Shortly after that, I realized I wasn’t the only person that felt this was. I did a little more research on Yosemite and learnt that you needed a permit to climb half dome and that there was a lottery in May that you had to apply for. My excitement quickly turned to anxiety because I was finding this out in July so the lottery was long gone. Feeling like an absolute idiot, and realizing I probably should have looked into that before booking flights, hotels, and committed to doing this for charity (Hope for the Nations, with the goal of raising $8K to build one foster home for them). I guess I just figured I could show up and role right up the backcountry like anybody else. It’s actually great that they do this as it ensures that there aren’t too many people on the trails all at once. I was devastated at the time of finding this out, but happy to know they are doing their best to conserve this amazing area, and also keep everyone safe, as you wouldn’t want a bunch of people running around trying to get to the top of half dome, as it is pretty dangerous and steep.

Being a problem solver, I thought there must be a way to make this happen, and it turns out there is. You see, they do give out a few additional permits 24-48 hours before the day you want to climb half dome, so you have to go and line up overnight sometimes to ensure you get the very few extra permits they give out. I wasn’t going to be in Yosemite early enough, and so I looked into options and found that companies would take you on guided trips and get your permits for you. They couldn’t guarantee we would get the Half Dome permits, but said they would do their best. I was already committed, so figured I would go and hopefully it would happen. I actually didn’t find out until the day before that I was to arrive in Yosemite that our guide had gotten our Half Dome permits. I was sooooooooo pumped!

I flew into San Francisco and we were supposed to leave the next day for Yosemite (it’s about a 4-6 hour drive) and spend the day getting there as our hike was starting the next day. When we got in late that night, we sat at the baggage carrier until the last bag came out, all of them except for mine, which had my brand new drone, and all of our camping gear! Turns out my bag missed the flight and wouldn’t be here until tomorrow night on the same flight, which meant I had to stay in San Fran for a day which I realized wasn’t the worst thing in the world. My favorite way to see a city is by renting a bike, with no set route and just going all day and seeing what I find. I got up the next day, and decided to rent bikes and go across the Golden Gate Bridge which didn’t disappoint. For those of you that haven’t seen it in real life, it’s insane how big that bridge is and the views are amazing, a must do if you’re ever there. I had an amazing day, and later that night, I got my bag from the airport and headed out to Yosemite valley. When I got to Yosemite I realized that all the talk about it being tourist chaos was true. Yosemite village/valley is full of busloads of tourists and I was excited to get hiking and away from the crowds. I met my guide Joe​ and we went off on our hike to get to the top of half dome a couple of days later. Let me start by saying that Yosemite national park is absolutely breathtaking, on our first day we camped out beside a lake after climbing up close to the summit of Clouds Rest (a mountain with awesome views of Yosemite valley and half dome).

I had a swim after our afternoon of hiking and then we enjoyed dinner by the fire with our new friend Joe​. We went to bed early to get an early start as I was exhausted from the day of driving there and then doing a decent 5 hour hike into the evening. Halfway through the night, I woke up to some rumbling outside the tent and thought I was just dazed and confused from my sleep. But then I heard it again. I couldn’t believe it, and thought there was a ****ing bear outside of our tent! I opened the door and heard our guide yell super loud “HEY!“…and then the footsteps scurried away into the darkness. I was like holy **** was that a bear…the guide says “nope, just a coyote”. Safe to say, my sleep after that was pretty sparse.

We woke up to blueberry pancakes, bacon and coffee and that was right about the time I realized I was pretty stoked to be doing this with a guide, the food on the trek was phenomenal. We summated clouds rest, had lunch on the top and looked out at one of the most stunning views I had ever seen. We hiked for the rest of the day back down and about 2 hours from Half Dome. 

​Joe​ suggested we leave tonight and hike overnight so we get to the top of half dome at sunrise. We were all feeling good so slept for a few hours and woke up around 2 am and packed our gear and started hiking in the pitch black. Because Yosemite is a national park, there aren’t any cities or towns around so it’s incredibly dark there at night and it’s amazing how clearly you can see the stars. On our hike up, we saw at least 6 massive shooting stars fly through the sky, I had never seen anything like it before! I felt so connected to my surroundings that night, I will never forget that moment. It was so calm and quiet in the woods that night. We got to the half dome wall. For those of you that don’t know, the rangers put up metal posts for hikers to climb up the last part of the climb, because it’s really steep and it’s just one big piece of granite rock, with a face that slides thousands of feet to the valley floor. The nice part about going at night is that while we were going up this last steep part, I couldn’t see anything other than what my headlamp showed me so I couldn’t see what I was actually doing, which for me I was ok with. We were the first ones up  and just as we got to the summit, the sun started to rise and it made it all worth it. We had breakfast burritos and then walked out to “the diving board”, a piece of rock that sticks out over a 4000 ft drop straight down. As I stood on it, I was like, one day this will fall, and I really hope today isn’t the day.

The rest of the way down back to the Valley was full of incredible waterfalls and lakes. The last couple of hours of our hike was a little bit crazy because all of a sudden there were what felt like thousands of tourists running around with their cameras, fighting for the best view. It was a big change from the 3 days of peace and quiet in the mountains we had just come from. When I go away on adventures, I always make the effort to disconnect from my phone, even if it’s for a couple of days like it was here. There is something about being out in nature with no distractions that allows me to be so present and grateful for this opportunity at life. It re-energizes me like nothing else, and I’m so lucky to have created a life where I have the ability and freedom to experience things like this. 

I had no plans after the hike but had a few more days to kill. I decided to take our guides advice and go to Mammoth. The drive from Yosemite to Mammoth is beautiful in itself and I highly recommend anyone at the very least to drive through there, you wont be disappointed. After a few hours, we got to our hotel and needless to say a nice warm shower after being out in the woods for a few days is about the most satisfying thing in the world. We stayed in a nice little chalet by a lake and decided to try downhill mountain biking for the first time, which got me instantly hooked. Mammoth is a great place to learn how to do it too because it’s not busy at all and the mountain has tons of different trails for all levels, I loved it. After some mountain biking for a couple of days, I capped off our trip with a visit to a hot spring just outside of Mammoth in this beautiful Valley. We had been given some very vague directions as to where these springs were and we were driving all around these gravel roads in this stunning valley and couldn’t find them for the life of us. We were about to give up and then out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a couple of people who seemed to be sitting in a bath in the middle of nowhere. We parked the car on the side of the gravel road and started walking towards them. Turns out my hunch was right and we were greeted by a naked guy and a couple of others sitting in a small man made tub. It was tight quarters but luckily the naked guy seemed to have swayed the others to crowd the one side of the tub, so I jumped in just in time to watch the sunset and chat with our new friends.

It was an unbelievable trip and I’ve been fortunate enough to have some amazing trips in the last few years. What made this trip so special however was that remember how I had decided to raise money for Hope for the Nations to build a foster home, well while I was climbing mountains, all of our friends, colleagues, and family members were donating to the cause, and ended up raising double what I was hoping to raise. In the end all of us together gave HFTN’s a cheque for $17,720​ and built two homes instead of one. I remember reconnecting to my email and finding this out at the cabin in Mammoth, and I just started balling my eyes out, as I was so grateful for all the support and generosity. To this day, that whole trip is still one of my all-time favorites.