The National Park Service made the following decision:
Permits to hike to the top of Half Dome are now required seven days per week when the cables are up. This is an interim measure to increase safety along the cables while the park develops a long-term plan to manage use on the Half Dome Trail. (Strenuous, 4800 ft ascent)
Might I also add, the three of us girls made our way to the ranger station at Yosemite to "chat" with the cute ranger boys (it was raining? what can I say). We chatted for 30 minutes or so. He gave us advise for our next trip and was not quite sure how they planned to change the permit situation but was sure it would change. They only issue 400 permits a day and you can only apply for a permit 4 months in advance of your planned hike/climb. If you want to get up to the dome by day break, you may score a permit when someone gets there and looks up the cables and chickens out. The day we picked 11 months earlier, it managed to rain, the hike would have been canceled. We weren't to bummed after that!
Here are the tent cabins we stayed in.
May I also mention on the day we checked in, we strolled up to the Awahnee Hotel. Did I say "waaahhhhhh"? It was the most fabulous, magical, mid evil looking place I've ever seen!!
Except in the movies, I believe
Our first morning "after" sleeping in the "cabin", we were trying to find coffee...mmmmm coffee We wandered over to the lodge, we needed to exchange our tickets for transport up
Glacier Mountain, we were going to hike 12 miles down hill that day. Rain blew that idea. My cousin Elaine took our tickets and went to the kiosk for us while we searched for coffee. We were standing near the lodge, still raining, my lovely sister Sandra looks a bit beyond me and says to me, Janet don't freak but there's a bear right behind you. I looked at her and said "no, no way your messing with me". I turned with a big grin on my face which quickly dissipated as I saw the young bear walking by me. I quickly ran after it! I wanted to see where he he was going and what he was trying to find. He ran by the ticket kiosk and across the road to a large meadow.
The Merced River runs over the gorgeous slabs of granite that are so abundant there. Granite everywhere you look.
On the day of our big hike, it rained. There is no way you can go when it's raining as hard as it was that day. We decided we would go to Glacier Point and go take a look at the Grizzly Giant in Mariposa Grove. What an awesome trip, giant sequoias everywhere you look. The National Forrest Service conducted a "prescribed" fire there in 2008, over 90 acres were planned to be burned. It's a cleansing, something we all could use from time to time, although I don't suggest doing it by fire.
Moving on, we had an awesome hike up Vernal Falls. What a beautiful, captivating, breathtaking hike! If you don't believe in God, you will after you see the beauty of Yosemite.
I will be back to write more of our most awesome hike, I've never before had the feeling I had when I was there, absolute beauty everywhere you look.
Here are the tent cabins we stayed in.
May I also mention on the day we checked in, we strolled up to the Awahnee Hotel. Did I say "waaahhhhhh"? It was the most fabulous, magical, mid evil looking place I've ever seen!!
Except in the movies, I believe
Our first morning "after" sleeping in the "cabin", we were trying to find coffee...mmmmm coffee We wandered over to the lodge, we needed to exchange our tickets for transport up
The Merced River runs over the gorgeous slabs of granite that are so abundant there. Granite everywhere you look.
On the day of our big hike, it rained. There is no way you can go when it's raining as hard as it was that day. We decided we would go to Glacier Point and go take a look at the Grizzly Giant in Mariposa Grove. What an awesome trip, giant sequoias everywhere you look. The National Forrest Service conducted a "prescribed" fire there in 2008, over 90 acres were planned to be burned. It's a cleansing, something we all could use from time to time, although I don't suggest doing it by fire.
Moving on, we had an awesome hike up Vernal Falls. What a beautiful, captivating, breathtaking hike! If you don't believe in God, you will after you see the beauty of Yosemite.
I will be back to write more of our most awesome hike, I've never before had the feeling I had when I was there, absolute beauty everywhere you look.
