August 20, 2011

August 20, 2011

Yesterday the camp host (a New Yorker) recommended a hike to North Dome. The trailhead is only ten miles away, so we decide to give it a shot. The trail was nice but nothing special, but…it had a pot of gold at the end. North Dome as we come to find out is Half Dome’s counterpart sitting atop the eastern end of Yosemite Valley. Even though we are still some thirty miles from Yosemite Valley, by road, we are only a few miles as the crow flies. After four miles through the forest the trail emerges onto bare granite. It makes Aimee very nervous. (It doesn’t help that a lady died last week in similar circumstances sliding off Half Dome.) But Aimee troops on through to the end.

We sit on this dome of granite, with Half Dome staring us in the face, eating our trail lunch and soaking up the scenery. We watch the bustle of cars far below in the Valley. The only disappointment is the thick haze covering the valley, probably the result of the thousand campfires that burned in the valley last night. We sit for probably an hour hoping some of the haze will blow away and that the sun would travel far enough to shine on the face of Half Dome. Neither occurred. We hike back with a brief side detour to a pretty rock arch. We are tired after we get back. It was a ten-mile, six-hour hike at high altitude. We are not getting any younger.