Julie R Fricke

My phone rings in my knapsack. I am standing on top of a granite dome in Yosemite National Park. I am thousands of feet above almost every other peak in the area.  I bend over to sift through the stuff in the knapsack, struggling to find the phone amongst all the other dreck. I miss the call, but notice it is O calling, so I call him back.

"Hi, sorry I missed your call," I say.

"I'm on top of Half Dome! It's incredible up here! You wouldn't believe the view! " he says. "Where are you?"

"I'm on the Sub-Dome," I respond, "You know that little dome right beside Half Dome."

"Wow, really? Boy, you don't want to come up here. It's pretty spooky. I had the heebie jeebies myself. I walked over toward the edge but couldn't bring myself to look over. Oh wait, gotta go, Tobin is calling." O disconnects from my phone call to answer the one from Tobin.

The more things stay the same, the more they change. Here we were, the two of us. Each making calls on our cell phones while in the middle of the wilderness. And in that, we repeat a generations' old tradition of using the soles of our feet and pounding of our hearts to make our way to the top.

I did it myself in my youth. I hiked the nine miles up to Half Dome with beanpole legs, energy, and enthusiasm. We camped out overnight at the base and hiked back down the next day. Some cute guys gave me a spray of mountain azaleas. I was jazzed by that. 

My mother before me did it. For all I know, perhaps her mother strained up the incline back in the thirties, dressed in her demure house dress.There is no other way to reach this place. You can't drive here; there are no roads. In fact it's a very long nine miles to any road of any kind from this remote, barren outpost of granite.

                          

Remote, yes, but alone? Oh no. Not even close. Hordes of other hikers patiently wait in line to clamber up the cables that string up the side of that oh-so-classic half sphere of solid rock, Half Dome, the icon of Yosemite.



We had started our hike at 6 a.m. It's one thing to get up in the dark when you are at home and getting ready for work. When you are camping, that all just seems so wrong! And yet, as we stepped out briskly to begin what the guidebooks described as an "extremely strenuous" eighteen mile hike, stars twinkled overhead. The forest was black on either side of the path as we tromped off for the trailhead. The only other people out were obviously heading in the same direction. Up! Other crazy people!

I quickly tired. Let's face it, when I last did this hike I was thirteen years old. It was hard then, too. That time I carried a backpack made of wooden dowels, and carried the essentials for sleeping out over night. Back then, we didn't even carry pads for sleeping on. We thought we were so avant garde; we carried plastic bubble wrap to cushion the hard cold ground from our sleeping bodies. We also drank straight from the rushing mountain streams. Picking up a bug from untreated water didn't even cross our radar then.

This time I meant to do it all in one day. No overnight backpack! (And I brought water with me!) But now I'm considerably older. My odometer has turned over more than a few times. My beating heart had become unused to pushing my older body up such a punishing trail.

Within 40 minutes of starting out I felt like I was going to puke. Catching your breath is one thing, feeling like you're going to lose all your insides is quite another. I clutched a boulder and hung my head. Waves of nausea eventually passed. Our hiking group had long ago gone on. Oh well, it's not a race, I thought to myself. It's a good thing I didn't even know that it would take 4800 feet of constant climbing to reach the top.  4800 feet! Yikes!

Hour after hour we moved onward. Onward and upward. The Mist Trail that we followed is a series of about a million granite steps that go up alongside Vernal Falls. At least in October it isn't very misty. Usually the pounding waterfall provides a constant spray of mountain water over everything. That day I hiked when I was thirteen we all wore ponchos. No need for that today.

Ten steps, rest. Five steps, rest. Five steps, rest. It was going to be a very long day.

Eventually, near the top,  I encouraged O to go on without me. The peak was nearly in sight. I knew he really wanted to summit. I was holding him back. "Go on," I said. "It's OK. I've been here before." He left, reluctantly.

I rested. Ahhh. But then I grew bored. Maybe I'll go on up to the top, I thought. I climbed another ten feet. Maybe I won't, I reconsidered. I sat another fifteen minutes. But the top is so close, I pondered yet again. I moved up a little more. Finally, I couldn't resist any longer. The top of the sub dome really was RIGHT THERE.

I made it! Hallelujah! The view was incredible. It was even more incredible to surprise O as he came off the peak. He had thought I was a total washout. We celebrated by eating some cheese. We took some pictures, and then turned to go back down the mountain. About this time I realized that the sole of my right boot had detached. Fifty percent of it was hanging, dead, like a flap of useless skin. I would have to watch how I placed my foot.

It is a nearly universally held belief that while walking uphill is hard,  walking downhill is easy.

Not so fast! Things are not always what they seem. Those nine miles back down the mountain went on and on and on. And on. We ate a little supper. We walked more miles. The daylight dimmed. We walked even more miles. The trail dipped down and down and down some more. We pulled out flashlights to better see the stones and ruts. And still the trail inexorably slipped down and down and down. My muscles ached from going downhill.

As it continued steeply down, I slowed, more and more. There was no way to go quickly. Sometime back, my SECOND boot had lost contact with half its sole. So now I was trudging, trudging, and carefully trying not to lose both soles completely. I called my shoes my hiking flip flops. Kind of funny, but then again, not so much. I couldn't even imagine totally losing the soles to my shoes!

Frustratingly, for a while, we could see that we were a long ways from the bottom of the valley. But as darkness closed in, it was like being on some kind of blind treadmill. We would walk, and yet the scenery would not change. Blackness surrounded us on every side. Only the trail immediately in front of us was visible.

We started to see little night creatures, like mice. Shadows loomed ahead. At every bend in the path I expected to see something familiar. Like the end. But it didn't happen.

At long last we reached the road through the valley. Still the treadmill sensation continued. Our little patch of brightness stayed with us, never revealing the sights just ahead.

At 7:42 pm we at long last reached our tent. Our friends had gone to dinner. We, however, were far too tired. We hobbled to the showers and then to bed. Dinner? Who needs it. All we really wanted was to crawl into a solf bed and sleep.

They say walking downhill is so much easier. But I would guess that "they" have never really tried it. Climbing uphill strains your heart and lungs. Going down kills your legs and knees and feet. And then the memory stays with you for days. I think it was a week before I could walk down stairs after I got home. What a souvenir! Ouch! Aagh! ooh!

 Thank goodness I had a bright flashlight. Thank God my shoes held out. Thank God for still being able to hike and thank you God for such a beautiful place to do it.

Uphill, both ways. Figuratively, anyways.  Check.

Barefoot. Almost.

Thank God, no snow!



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Post script:

I am walking around work the next day. One of the other teachers notices that I am wearing flip-flops. She gives a meaningful glance at my feet and raises her eyebrows. "Aren't you cold?" she asks. (It's threatening to rain, so the temperature has probably dropped down to a frigid 65 degrees.)

"No, no," I answer. "I'm just wearing flip flops because I was hiking this weekend. I have some blisters." I show her my raw heel. "I was at on Half Dome on Sunday!" I proudly tell her.

I get a totally blank stare.

"You know, Half Dome?. ...More blankness.

"You know, Yosemite?" I continue. "You've been to Yosemite, right?"

She shakes her head. "Well maybe when I was really small" she answers, still not comprehending. This is a lady who is easily fifty years old.

I guess I'll have to bring her a picture.

For Roger, thanks to   counterfeitfake  viarosiedee