Sendero Group Travel Blog

Follow Sendero travelers on their adventures using accessible GPS.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Half Dome, Check! by Kevin Chao

Ahh, Half Dome. I did do the climb on Saturday September 29, 2007. It was an utterly amazing climb that involved about 16 hours of straight hiking with constant probing of my cane and trekking pole to find a good footing. If I didn't find a good footing it could make the difference between slipping on the rocky terrain or falling off the side of the cliff with a drop-off of over 3000 feet. The feeling of actually getting to the top of Half Dome after an 8.5 mile hike, elevation change of 5000 feet and 8 hours was just amazing. And once completed the entire hike was also an amazing feeling. I am not sure if there are any words that can describe how physically involved the climb was, labor intensive it was, and how amazing it was. I will admit that my entire legs were in pure pain with each step for the last 4 mile of the hike down. I can say that I am still feeling the pain a bit today, but I am healing.

Here a few notes regarding the Hike:
Round-Trip:
18 Miles
16 hours
Total Elevation Change: 10000 feet
valley floor: 3800 feet
Top of Half Dome: 8800 feet.
began: 6AM
Finished: 10PM

I recorded User POIs, Audios, and photos along the way along with making a
Replay of the entire trip. Each POI is associated with an audio file that gave an audio of what the progress was, what was around me and so on.
Download Kevin's User.poi and Replay file (zipped file).
Some may wonder why would anyone want to hike 18 miles, go through an
elevation change of 10000 feet, and do this for 16 hours. This was something
that I started last year on my birthday where I walked with friends in San
Francisco for 13 miles in honor of October 13, my birthdate. This time
around I decided to raise the bar and do it honor of the age I will be, 18.
So it was a personal goal that I set for myself and was surely worth it.