Yosemite - Half Dome

I shall skip all the previous entries that I am supposed to have written in order to bring this entry to everyone reading Live!... well... it is definitely better than if I were to do this a few weeks later at least.

For people who don't already know Yosemite (pronounced as Yo-SEM-it-ee... not YOse-MIte) is a national park in California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite, and a designated world heritage site. Really beautiful place, with fond memories of it from the days when I was a kiddo, when the squirrels came to visit us in our log cabin to get food. Hence, it is only natural that when we saw the long weekend (due to Labour Day by the way), I joined in the bunch of people (from San Pablo household) that wanted to go Yosemite... In exact, I joined in the bunch that wanted to scale half dome, 6 of us guys..

Saturday - 1st Sep 07
Saturday was kind of an uneventful day in general (very eventful in another aspect... but that's left for another blog.. =P). As one of the 6 of us went to fix his car, even though I managed to reach San Pablo on time at 9:30am, we didn't leave Sunnyvale until after lunch, which was around 1pm.
Tip 1 - Never leave in the afternoon: The sun was glaring straight into the car while we drove over. Although we're all in California, it really didn't help that our left and right felt more like Mid-West USA, with farmland after farmland and no shelter to help shade us from the sun.
Tip 2 - Leave early to avoid jam: As expected, with everyone going for roadtrips over the weekend (and by everyone I mean whole of america), it was only natural that a long stretch of road was jammed, causing us to melt in the sun for an additional hour to the predicted 3hrs of travel. A bonus, however, was that the scenary was fantastic, but when we tried to fit a movie to go with the scenary, we could only come up with "Brokeback Mountain"... doesn't help that all 6 of us are guys huh... =)

Anyway, after finally reaching our lodging place at 5pm or so, we unloaded our stuff and decided to try to catch the sunset in Yosemite itself. Tip 3 - Stay in Yosemite (even if it means stay in the car): Although our lodging claimed to be just an hour's drive from Yosemite, it was entirely misrepresented as we took about 30mins to get to the gate of Yosemite, and another hour to reach Glacier Point to watch the sunset. Yosemite itself is just too damn big to stay near, and the drive up and down was similar to an easier version of the La Honda Rd (Initial D & FF:Tokyo Drift type mountain).

On Glacier Point itself, the scenary was FANTASTIC!! (Photos below... more photos soon) However, one big question mark that hovered over my head was... we're gonna climb that beautiful mountain across that is like... a million ft tall?!?!?! ... and the answer is .. yes...

Half Doom... I meant Dome - 2nd Sept 07
Tip 3 - Stay in Yosemite this is SO important... we had to wake up at 5am in order to start our journey so that we can reach the base by 6:30am to begin our ascend. Tip 4 - Stay with people that can wake up. We had to drag 2 of them who couldn't wake up out of their beds else we would have lost much time. Tip 5 - Coffee Coffee Coffee... I didn't drive, but if I were to have driven, I would need like 10 cups of caffeine to keep me awake... Nice scenary, Nice weather... Sleepy...

Tip 6 - Do research before going: While I had an idea that we were going to climb a mountain and that a lot of people said it was very difficult, I was thinking, "It can't be as difficult as Mt Biang can it?" Well, let's just say I was both right and wrong. No it is not as difficult as Mt Biang because we don't have to carry like 40kg of things with us, but yes it requires more stamina as it is way way higher... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_dome

Tip 7 - Sleep and Eat: Basically, due to insufficient sleep (we slept at about 11pm the night before) and insufficient salt (we ate fruit bars for all meals), all of us had cramps during the climb after a while. Worst of all, Patrick cramped up on the cable climb up as well, so he was stuck there for a while.

Tip 8 - Bring extra Memory Card: I found out on my way there that I didn't bring the spare... brilliant right... hence the photos here are the ones that I managed to take with my own. Will get the rest from my friends soon and upload accordingly...

Again, Half Dome was a fantastic place, and you feel a great sense of achievement having accomplished the climb, but it is really hard for me to describe it... so more photos some time soon yeah? =)