Day's end: Cloud's Rest
Day's miles: 7.1 (11.1 including Half Dome)
Total trip miles: 7.1
Today. Was. Brutal.
And we only did 11.1 miles!! To be fair, we did ascend about 4,500 feet which is probably why my body hates me so much right now.
The day started out by jumping on the Mist Trail, which leads us to the JMT. We went uphill all day long and passed some pretty spectacular waterfalls. We stopped a few times to take our shoes off and put our feet in the icy water, which felt real good on our poor feet. I think both of us are moving a little slower than usual because we are worried about re-hurting our ankles/feet (also did I mention that it was uphill. All day.). It is crazy to think that for 2 entire weeks before this, all I did was sit on a couch with my foot up and barely walked one time around the block. Yup, that's my warm-up/training for 220ish miles on the JMT. If you can walk around the block once without limping or going too slow, you'll be fine... at least that's what I keep telling myself.
Our first JMT sign!
It took us all morning and part of the early afternoon to hike to the base of sub-dome. Once there, you have to climb a ridiculous number of stairs to the top of sub-dome, and then you are finally looking at the bottom of Half Dome.
What they say about Half Dome is not a lie. The climb is incredibly steep and without the cables (and some grip-y gloves), I'm not sure anyone could make it up there. Aaron decided (wisely) not to do Half Dome and waited for me on top of sub-dome. His foot was giving him some problems this morning and he decided that he didn't want to chance aggravating it more. Even though my body was killing me, and I was worried about my ankle, and the possibility of falling off (let's not forget that someone died up here yesterday) I decided to do it anyway.
Oh. My. Goodness.
The climb to the top was the most incredible upper body workout, as you were basically pulling yourself up this mountain. My body was aching for a break, but when I looked back to see if it was feasible to take a quick one I was met with a very far vertical drop to the granite bottom. Now, I am not afraid of heights (I've jumped out of a few airplanes before), but this drop is one that could definitely make me want to keep both feet planted firmly on the ground for a looong time.
Going up.
After making it to the top, I snapped a few photos and then began my descent. There were a few people who were just holding on to the cables for dear life facing forward and then letting their Vans slide down the side of Half Dome - who does this in Vans anyway? I chose to do the descent backwards, because 1) my arms told me they were good for another beating, and 2) I didn't want to be looking down the whole time.
After Half Dome, we were both so tired from the constant uphill grind that our pace slowed to a whopping 1 mile an hour! I couldn't believe it - we have never hiked so slow before. Ever. We hiked (so slowly) for a few more hours, and then decided to call it quits for the day at Cloud's Rest as the sun was going down.
Tomorrow we are expected to do 16 miles to make it to Tuolumne Meadows. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal at all for us, but we have been going so incredibly slow today, and tomorrow is just going to be more uphill. Also, I think I have seriously pulled a groin/thigh muscle going up Half Dome. It hurts every time I lift my leg to take a step. Probably, I should have decided against going up Half Dome, but I'm not sure I would ever want to do this long hike to the top of it in the future, so I had to do it, right? I just hope that this pain goes away, because I would really hate to be the pansy that flakes after 7 miles on the JMT because of a pulled muscle...
You can enlarge any of these pictures by clicking on them.
No comments:
Post a Comment