Our preparation can now be declared as complete for hiking Half Dome of Yosemite this Weekend. Below is the image of Half Dome that kept me day dreaming about this time for last 2 months.
It has been a relatively long wait before the day is so close now. My first hiking experience tells how I came into this whole thing 2 months back. During this time, except a short break last month in Ramadan, I have been hiking every weekend in different trails of bay area, mainly in Mission Peak. It turned out that hiking is not as tough as I used to think initially. However, make no mistake, it's tough enough to test all your endurance. I have lost 4 pounds of weight during these preparation which is even a lot considering I am under-weight and there was no fat at all to loose. Interestingly, my 2 other partners lost a huge amount at the same time. Nitol lost almost 12 pounds while Shahriar lost around 30 pounds (well, even after loosing that much he is slightly over 200 pounds now!).
We started our final preparation just last Friday. Tomorrow we will drive for Yosemite where we have booked a cabin in Curry Village. Last Saturday I and Shahriar went to Stanford Trail of Mission Peak in Fremont while Sunday, I and Nitol went to a new trail of Mission Peak before crossing back to the same Stanford trail. But the one that I liked most was last Tuesday when we all 3 woke up very early and took the Standford trail when it was still dark in the early morning. We used headlights, flash lights, hiking watch and all the hiking instruments that we have bought last few days. We took some very steep shortcuts with fully loaded weights and could hike without being tired. All these sessions worked very well for us after the long gap of hiking during the month of Ramadan. I and Nitol even went to City Beach of Fremont to test ourselves in the indoor rock climbing there. I believe it was almost 30 feet high straight 90 degrees. Well, I must agree that rock climbing is lot tougher than hiking! As part of preparation I even participated in JP Morgan Race in Crissy Field, San Francisco on behalf of Salesforce this September 16th with some of my colleagues. I went running and walking to the race place (approx 4 miles) . During the walk/jogging in that race, I took 52 minutes to finish 3.6 miles. There were 250+ participants from Salesforce and 5500+ in total coming from different bay area companies.
It has been a relatively long wait before the day is so close now. My first hiking experience tells how I came into this whole thing 2 months back. During this time, except a short break last month in Ramadan, I have been hiking every weekend in different trails of bay area, mainly in Mission Peak. It turned out that hiking is not as tough as I used to think initially. However, make no mistake, it's tough enough to test all your endurance. I have lost 4 pounds of weight during these preparation which is even a lot considering I am under-weight and there was no fat at all to loose. Interestingly, my 2 other partners lost a huge amount at the same time. Nitol lost almost 12 pounds while Shahriar lost around 30 pounds (well, even after loosing that much he is slightly over 200 pounds now!).
We started our final preparation just last Friday. Tomorrow we will drive for Yosemite where we have booked a cabin in Curry Village. Last Saturday I and Shahriar went to Stanford Trail of Mission Peak in Fremont while Sunday, I and Nitol went to a new trail of Mission Peak before crossing back to the same Stanford trail. But the one that I liked most was last Tuesday when we all 3 woke up very early and took the Standford trail when it was still dark in the early morning. We used headlights, flash lights, hiking watch and all the hiking instruments that we have bought last few days. We took some very steep shortcuts with fully loaded weights and could hike without being tired. All these sessions worked very well for us after the long gap of hiking during the month of Ramadan. I and Nitol even went to City Beach of Fremont to test ourselves in the indoor rock climbing there. I believe it was almost 30 feet high straight 90 degrees. Well, I must agree that rock climbing is lot tougher than hiking! As part of preparation I even participated in JP Morgan Race in Crissy Field, San Francisco on behalf of Salesforce this September 16th with some of my colleagues. I went running and walking to the race place (approx 4 miles) . During the walk/jogging in that race, I took 52 minutes to finish 3.6 miles. There were 250+ participants from Salesforce and 5500+ in total coming from different bay area companies.
Just morning today before coming office, I went for a quick run in Lake Elizabeth Central Park. I ran slowly without stopping 1 full circle. My hiking watch says it was 3 miles and I took 25 minutes to make 4100 steps to complete it. However, I knew from Ezaz that it's around 2 miles so my watch might be counting the distance wrong.
The day after tomorrow we plan to start hiking very early in the morning. We should be checking out by 5:30 AM and be on the happy isles / trail by 6 AM. I have prepared a table taking help from the nice book on Half Dome Hiking - One Best Hike: Half Dome of Yosemite.
Here are the major point of interests and my calculations of how much time it should us to reach those points and come back.
Major POIs & Timelines for Hiking Going via Mist Trail and Returning via John Muir Trail
POI# | Point of Interest (POI) | Elapsed Time | Altitude (Feet) | Cumulative Milage |
0 | Start from Curry Village | 0:00 | 0 | |
1 | Milage Marker Sign | 0:30 | 4093 | 0.8 |
2 | Vernal Fall Bridge | 1:00 | 4464 | 1.8 |
3 | Top of Vernal Fall | 1:30 | 5062 | 2.4 |
4 | Silver Apron Bridge | 1:40 | 5204 | 2.6 |
5 | Little Yosemite Valley | 2:50 | 6095 | 5.6 |
6 | Half Dome/John Muir Trail Split | 3:40 | 7000 | 5.9 |
7 | The Little Spring | 4:05 | 7228 | 6.7 |
8 | View of Half Dome & Sub Dome | 4:30 | 7708 | 7.3 |
9 | Base of the Cables | 5:30 | 8402 | 7.9 |
10 | Apex of Half Dome | 6:15 | 8842 | 8.0 |
Take Rest and Pictures for 1 Hour (7:15) | ||||
11 | The Little Spring – again | 8:00 | 7228 | 9.3 |
12 | Little Yosemite Valley – again | 9:00 | 6095 | 11.5 |
13 | Junction of Mist & John Muir Trails | 9:40 | 5950 | 12.5 |
14 | Nevada Fall Bridge | 9:50 | 5977 | 12.7 |
15 | Vernal Fall Bridge – again | 11:30 | 4464 | 15.3 |
16 | Milage Marker Sign – again | 12:10 | 4093 | 16.3 |
0 | Curry Village Parking Lot | 12:40 | ||
If you want to follow us, checkout the whole Saturday (October 3rd) from early morning till late evening my status updates at Twitter or Facebook -
I will also be in Google Latitude from iPhone.
We signed a 1 year lease for a town home near BART yesterday. It's a 3 storied townhouse and we are pretty excited about moving there at 1st November.
Good bye for now and I will update you guys from the Half Dome trail.
We signed a 1 year lease for a town home near BART yesterday. It's a 3 storied townhouse and we are pretty excited about moving there at 1st November.
Good bye for now and I will update you guys from the Half Dome trail.
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