Yosemite

“Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.”
― Ansel Adams

Around four thirty in the afternoon, after a twelve kilometers hike over three hours and 1,776 feet in elevation gained, we stood on top of the world: Clouds Rest, Yosemite Valley. It's hard to describe how we felt when we finally made it to the summit. After a late start to the day (for a combination of reasons, but I've been told my campfire-hotdog-craving may have contributed) the hike to Clouds Rest felt like a race against the sun. I remember checking my watch obsessively, trying to calculate our pace against the number of daylight hours remaining. The hike was out-and-back, and I wasn't keen to navigate a mile of switchbacks in the dark.

Clouds Rest is a four-part trail: part one is a gentle two mile hike through the Tenaya Lake valley. Part two is a tortuous series of switchbacks covering a thousand feet of elevation gain in a mile, leading at the summit to the Sunrise Lakes trail fork. After a brief descent, part three consists of a few miles through another wooded valley, passing a lake along the way.

Part four is the ascent of Clouds Rest itself: reaching 9,926 feet (with a touch of altitude sickness for good measure) we were driven up the final, brutal stretch by a rush of adrenaline and an unwillingness to quit. The top of Clouds Rest is a narrow ledge, with a long, sheer drop off. Terrifying? Yes. But absolutely worth it. The summit gives way to a 360-view of Yosemite Valley, overlooking the famous Half Dome to the south.

We stayed at the summit for nearly an hour, just relishing in the view and how it felt to be there, in that moment, with the mountains and the treeline in the distance. Eventually though, we retraced our steps back down. The hike back is a blur... I think we were all a little off from the altitude. You enter this kind of time-warp when hiking, where all that matters is putting one foot in front of another. We made it back to the trail head right as the sun set below the horizon and dusk settled around us.

That night we collapsed: dirty, sweaty and exhausted into sleeping bags, huddled together under the stars. I was physically drained, every inch of my body ached. But as I lay there I remember feeling so full, like I was going to burst with happiness and awe, because of what we'd done. As Ansel Adams said, to me, Yosemite will always be a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder; a feeling I'm going to chase for years to come.