4:00: Upon entering the park
My parents and I just arrived at Yosemite’s entrance. My father gets out of the ranger station to buy our permits so we can spend our time in the back-country. After he got the permits, we all had to listen to the rangers lecture about the trail and what we are going to do. One thing that caught my attention was a poster, outside the door. “Climbing Halfdome,” it read in big bold letters “, here is what you are going to need,” and the list went on and on. That didn’t matter; the picture in the middle is what really was important at that time. It showed a picture of the cables. From the picture it looked like a walk through the forest, very easy. It was misleadingly reassuring to all of us, who left hearing horror stories of what can happen if you are caught in a lightning storm. Not good!
5:00: Glacier Point
Right now I am really excited; I can barely wait! We are right here at the trail head (Glacier Point), standing at the beginning where the fortune of our weekend lies. This marks the starting point of our trip.
The second the car stopped, I jumped out, taking in a nice, deep breath. “The air tastes so good here,” I thought to myself “, I can hardly wait!”
Unfortunately, garbage is garbage, and it stinks. I had the vile job of throwing out the garbage that lay brewing in those bear lockers. God only knows where it had been, but my parents were unforgiving and made me clean it all out. “You get such a great feeling touching other people’s old tissues and cigarettes!” I thought to myself
After a few minutes fowl of work, I realized that we were in business. The food was being locked away in one of those now clean “bear-proof lockers”, our backpacks were almost filled, and our permits and papers were filled out.
5:15: The hike begins:
We began to hike from the car to the trail head, and even after the first 50 feet, I began to understand the far-fetched measures this hike would level out to be. The weight of the backpack was enough to make anyone want turn back. Weighing in at over sixty pounds, I felt like a camel! The trail, too, was another element of our suffering; we started off the hike tumbling down at a 45 degree angle through rocks and tree stumps, being summoned by the thoughts that came to mind while looking down the sheer cliffs.
