#yose

One of my favorite parts of doing this blog is that I'm so far behind, that by the time I get to write about a place I visited, it's been a few months. (It's currently January 2026, and I'm in St. Pete, FL, but I'm writing about visiting California at the end of July 2025.) Given the time passage and my atrocious memory, one of the ways I conjure experiences of the past out of my frail noggin is by looking at photos I took at the time about which I'm writing. Today's version involves looking at photos of Yosemite, so the smiles are extra wide and the warm fuzzy feelings inside are extra cozy. It's like I'm wrapped in a blanket sitting by a fire, and I'm so relaxed that I'm not even noticing the fire is expanding and burning down the house.

I got to Lee Vining, a tiny town right outside of Yosemite, the same night of my ill-fated hike near Vegas. Although my feet were in bad shape, I was absolutely giddy. The next morning, even just the drive into Yosemite through Tioga Pass was already jaw dropping. I drove through the park for about an hour to get to Hetch Hetchy and then spent another hour figuring out how to get my banged up feet into a pair of shoes without crying. The winning combo was my low cut Astrals. Putting my new insoles--same ones that were a big contributor to the back of my feet's demise--inside the Astrals lifted my feet just enough to avoid friction with the no-no region. Between that, 7 pairs of socks, and mountains of bandaids, I was able to protect my walkers enough to get moving. It wasn't particularly pain-free, but I wasn't about to miss hiking in Yosemite. And Hetch Hetchy did not disappoint. Plus, it's just a fun name to have a reason to say over and over.

On the second day of Christmas/Yosemite, I kept it relatively light, as I was trying to save some pain and leg endurance for the finale (I was only in Yosemite for 3 days this time). So I did a brief recon mission of the next day's outing with a hike to Mt. Watkins, which has direct views of Half Dome.

I then drove through the park and settled for the night near the Yosemite Valley entrance. I got there with plenty of time to warm my bones with inhaled pyrotechnics, including but not limited to the crazy light show in the sky.

The next morning, I woke up extra early with a grin that barely left my face the rest of the day. It was finally time to take on the hike I'd been manifesting for years. Half Dome absolutely lived up to the hype and scared the crap out of me. My poor legs were no match for the adrenaline of the day, even if it took an hour to prep myself physically and mentally once I got to the parking area, which wasn't at the trailhead and added a couple of miles to the excursion. Despite that, it was all magic. The hike's actual trailhead started with an almost immediate "fuck you" as I made it up the steep climb to Vernal Falls. The sun slowly rose over the valley as my heart pumped from the ascent and nature's majesty. By 7:30, I was feeling the force that is Nevada Falls. From there, it was a completely misleading flat section that ended with a bunch of rough, rocky switchbacks that eventually landed me at the base of Sub Dome. That's when the angles and exposure started getting extra wonky.

As I was climbing Sub Dome and enjoying the occasional, relatively flat section, I could see the infamous cables that present the only avenue for defeating the final boss in the distance. I kept telling myself there's no way the angle is really that bad, that the incline is really that severe.

By the time I got to the base of Half Dome itself, where the cables start, I realized I was absolutely right. The angle was even worse than I expected. I stared at it in a spell of disbelief for a couple of minutes, and then gathered just enough motivation from my stupid ego telling me there's no chance I was gonna get this far and not at least try the cables.

About halfway up the dome (Quarter Dome if you will), I hated myself for making this horrible decision. And to think: I actually entered my name into a lottery and crossed my fingers for 3 months to have the privilege to risk my life in this completely unnecessary way. My fear of heights was kicking in on full blast. The one or two poles that weren't fully secured in place were mindfucks--but then again, how is anyone meant to fix them? How the hell did anyone even install these cables in the first place?! I assume aliens from space did it while they were in the neighborhood to build the pyramids in Egypt.

In my head--I wanted to be considerate of the other hikers and their internal yelling--I was vehemently, passionately questioning how I could be so stupid as to think this is a good idea, never mind an activity I would enjoy. Even my shoes were trying to leave, i.e. slipping off of my feet due to the lovely combination of the insane angle, extra socks, and the shoes' low cut.

But I was already halfway there and the idea of turning around was somehow scarier, so I kept tearing up my gloves as I held on to the cables for dear life. Eventually, the angle got a little less crazy, graduating from solitary confinement to group activities with the other well-behaved, out-of-their-minds patients. By some miracle, I made it to the top.

While taking my time appreciating the views, I made a couple of friends. Camaraderie is a lot easier when you just shared a near-death experience. (Fiiine, I'm being a little dramatic.) We made our way back down as a group. Somehow, facing the rock and climbing backwards made the reverse journey significantly less scary, except for those moments where others were passing by going in the opposite direction. I hugged more poles and cables that day than I care to admit. And then I saw kids going up without gloves or a harness or any sort of safety mechanism. I'm not even sure their adult was with them. Little showoffs.

One of my new hiking buddies and I started booking it in an effort to get to the sweet valley floor ASAP. We were probably 4-5 miles away when he suggested we take a totally legit shortcut. It turned out that the pass was blocked for reasons unknown (the ranger really wasn't in a talkative mood). Fortunately for us, that meant our shortcut turned into extra steps. Woo! I ran out of water. Yay! My phone died so I couldn't tell how to navigate back to the path we needed to take. Whoopee! We made it back. Boooo!

- @yosespeaks