Half Dome!

I'm not sure how the choice to climb Half Dome came about, I just know that Rob and I had talked about climbing it for a while. He had climbed it twice before (before he knew me), but we thought it would be a cool thing for us to do together. I mainly liked the idea of spending the whole day alone together. :) Anyway, we decided that this would be a good summer to do it, since I am not currently pregnant and Kyle is old enough to leave for a whole day. So we left the kids in the good hands of Rob's mom and headed to Yosemite. I had NO idea what I was getting myself into! Half Dome is a 17 mile hike (roundtrip), which I thought I could handle, but I wasn't thinking about how hard it would be since half of that is uphill . . . or how scary it would be . . . those of you who know me well are probably shocked that I would even consider it (I mean come on, I wouldn't go on roller coasters until I was like 16) but I am proud to say that I MADE IT! It was SO HARD, and it took us forever (Rob was so patient with me even though he could have gone a lot faster by himself) but what an experience!

These are the cables you have to climb at the very end. It gets so steep that you're pretty much using all arm strength to pull yourself up them. This was definitely the scariest part, especially since they were pretty crowded (even on a Friday).

Can you believe we were on top of this? This is actually where we ate our lunch. There's a lot more space up there than it looks like from the side, though, so we didn't even realize at first that we were on the overhang.

The view from Half Dome--pretty amazing.

Rob and I on top of Half Dome.

See that line in the background coming down the mountain? Those are the cables.

Rob and I at the top of Vernal Falls.

Here are some tips I have for anyone who is interested in trying it:
1. Do some serious working out beforehand. I had been walking and doing aerobics pretty regularly, but that wasn't enough. I should have done more preparation for all that climbing, like running bleachers (a lot), stairmaster (for like 2 hours at a time), etc. It also wouldn't hurt to do some upper body strengthening to get ready for the cable part. (If you're like Rob, who is lucky enough to have natural athleticism and endurance, ignore this advice. Just play hockey once a week or soccer every now and then and you'll be fine. . . .so not fair).
2. Go in the middle of the week. It's a popular hike, so it's super crowded on the weekends (even Fridays, as we found out) and this gets kinda scary on the cable part because people are trying to go up and down at the same time, so you can get stuck in one spot for longer than you want to).
3. Bring lots of water and PowerBars. The PowerBars gave us the energy we needed, even though we didn't really feel like eating.
4. Start EARLY. We started hiking at about 6:30 am, and it's a good thing, because it took us a long time and you don't want to be going down all those stairs in the dark.
5. Bring a puke bag or bucket in case you wear yourself out so bad that you puke the whole car ride home like I did.
6. Bring a whistle in the event that you have to scare off a bear. We had a bear cross the trail right in front of us. It was more cool than scary, but comforting that Rob had that whistle, just in case it had run toward us instead of away from us.
7. Bring a camera and $20 to buy yourself an "I Made it to the Top" t-shirt. Trust me, after doing this you're going to want proof of your achievement. I've been wearing my t-shirt every day since. (Okay, just kidding about that part).