Two big and wonderful things happened on June 25th, 2015. The first was scoring a first-come first-serve campsite at Camp 4 in Yosemite. The second was the real icing; while waiting in line for camping, I checked my email (since I now enthusiastically had service) and voila! A notification confirming that I had won the daily lottery to hike Half Dome the next day.
For those of you who don’t know, you can’t just go hiking up Half Dome without a permit. There are a couple ways to try to obtain said permit, and the way I chose turned out to be serendipitous. It was also slightly anxiety-inducing given the fact that I hadn’t yet secured camping inside the park when I received the email. And the fact that I was also otherwise completely unprepared.
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As you may know from my essays, prior to leaving Milwaukee, WI, in 2015 to live in a tent, I wasn’t a camper. I wasn’t a hiker. Nor was I an outdoorsy human. So, my decision to hike Half Dome in Yosemite less than a month into the trip that same year was an ambitious one. The park’s website estimated the 14 to 16 mile hike taking between 10 to 12 hours.
Especially ambitious since before departing Milwaukee, my sporadic-at-best exercise routine consisted of mostly hungover trips to my local gym where I’d do intervals on a treadmill and free weights in front of a mirror, oblivious to my poor form. On one occasion, I even partially tore my right meniscus. No badass story about pulling through on some marathon or taking someone out in rugby.
Not that I ever ran marathons or played rugby. I did not. But I have drunk beer from someone’s shoe, which counts for points in rugby circles.
As I said, Half Dome was ambitious.
My journal entry from 6/24/2015 reads:
“…I’m embarking on a 10-12 hour hike to the peak of half dome. This is no small task people! To tell you the truth, I’m nervous as shit. I’ve done no prepping, thought I was going to die after Indian Garden in the Grand Canyon (which I know isn’t nearly as long or strenuous as Half Dome), and have had 0 time to mentally prepare myself. I’m exhausted. BUT, I will do it!!!”
That big fat travel bug I got up my ass that summer might have been the best thing to ever happen to me, or rather the best thing I ever made happen for myself. Nowadays, if I’ve had two glasses of wine, I can barely get myself to the garage the next morning for a 20-minute Peloton ride! Though in my defense, I do Ally Love’s Tabata rides. No joke.
Don’t get me wrong, I was fit. In some sense, I’ve always been fit. My mom loves telling the story of me at the doctor’s office some thirty years ago. My pediatrician told my mom that he’d never seen so much muscle on a toddler/little boy or girl, ever.
In truth, I might love it more than she does…
“Mom, what did that doctor say when I was little? You know, about my muscles?”
Cue the part where I act like I recall it just as it’s being retold.
In all seriousness though, I held Half Dome and Camp 4 on pedestals, and for good reasons.
Camp 4, as I came to discover, is a climber’s campground in Yosemite. You have to remember though that in 2015 my climbing dirtbag antics had not yet commenced. I was green, very green. For example, I purchased wood bundles from stores rather than foraged though I had enough mind not to transport said wood from one park to another. I still paid for a lot of camping rather than utilizing BLM or you know…just winging it on the side of the street or setting up camp down some random dirt road. I also admittedly threw cigarette butts out my car window. I wasn’t seasoned, I was a novice for sure, and I was kind of a dick. But I knew that I liked the sound of Camp 4 even then, and once there, I liked the vibes, too.
And I did not throw my cigarette butts anywhere except garbage cans, my pockets, or the underside of the laces of my hiking boots. I was sportin’ some pretty smelly gear.
6/23/15 @ Sequoia National Park:
“I’m at Sequoia National Park/Forest right now; turns out there’s free camping here! And bears, apparently, there’s no shortage of bears…I’ll be fine. Yes. Right.”
+1 point for finding free camping
“…I’ll pack up tomorrow or the next day and find some free BLM land to camp on near Camp 4, hopefully near.”
Oh, how I was assimilating quickly!
“I forgot to buy wood today, or more or less it was so fucking hot today I didn’t think it’d be cold enough tonight. FALSE. A bit proud of myself, I scavenged the entire campground and gathered enough tinder, kindling, and wood for a nice fire!!!”
Look at me go!
I then went on to say a few unriveting words about Sequoia looking like a dryer, less mountainous, and less colorful Colorado. I’m paraphrasing, but I even admitted to the poor articulation: “…okay, so, that’s not a good sell on similarities, but come here, and you’ll get it.”
June 25th was the much anticipated day of arrival to Yosemite. It is also the birthday of my best friend and love of my life, Alycia. The night before, I shared my excitement with my journal and also complained about feeling distraught having been without cell service for three days.
Woe is me.
No service left me no way to find out what time the sun would rise. I had been informed to arrive at Camp 4 by sunrise to get a spot. I got up at 5 a.m. that next day and arrived at camp just before 6 a.m., which was a sufficient time even with struggling to find the campground.
With my sense of direction, it’s a wonder how I’ve driven around the western states so often without it playing out like Lloyd taking the wheel in Dumb and Dumber. Though, that would have me ending up in Nebraska, and if you’ve read my Amateaur Hour in Nebraska article, you’d know it’s not exactly my version of ideal. So, let’s call it intuition.
There were about twenty-five to thirty people waiting in line already when I arrived, which made sense for June. By the time 7 a.m. rolled around, there were maybe fifty more folks lined up. The majority of people were wrapped in blankets in chairs or lying on the ground in sleeping bags, napping. Afterall, the park ranger wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 8:30, and it was frigid. Lucky for us, she showed up at 7:45!
Excited to have service, I checked my email while waiting. This is when that glorious thing happened: a notification confirming that I had won the daily lottery to hike Half Dome the next day!
Shit, I better get a fucking site.
There were a certain amount of tags they gave out for open spots. If you got a tag, you were good, and, as it wrote in my journal, “…if not, you’re fucked.” Once you get said tag, you wait more until you’re able to check in. Having made some new friends in line, we were all rooting for me to get a tag, which leads me to the next glorious thing—my camp tag. I paid for it and my new pals from the line (who wanted me to join their party of five given that it was six to a site) paid for theirs. We were all in! So were a couple others I had encountered, Jon and… we’ll call the other fella Mario. I went back outside the park to pack up camp there, get my belongings, and set up all over again back in Yosemite.
“I’ve had several people approach me to ask about my plan for Half Dome as people in line overheard me talking (surprise, surprise) or ask if I’m traveling solo, and share their admiration. It’s endearing, and their overall nature warms my heart.”
I became a bit of a curmudgeon about this topic in the months and years to follow. That is, people “admiring” me traveling solo as a woman. Come on, the movie Wild had just been released for fuck’s sake!
The people I encountered on the road would not stop comparing me to the character in Wild! You know the one… Reese Witherspoon, great movie, zero fucking relevance to my life. A grieving woman in the 90’s hiking across an entire country, with no vehicle, at the mercy of only payphones for communication? That feat was somehow similar to what I was doing? Please. I don’t even want to get started on that fucking banter. Though I must say I love Cheryl Straight’s work and, in hindsight, wish I wasn’t such a shit about that movie coming out right before I left and my bitterness about everyone thinking I was either in a similar situation as the main character or worse, inspired by it, since I had been scheming for so long prior. Don’t steal my thunder, Hollywood!
I became increasingly annoyed with the amount of people who wanted to donate food (or their applause) to me as a woman traveling by myself like I did. I will admit now that my inauspicious sentiment was a bit cunty; they didn’t know any better and were well intentioned after all. And sheltered.
I’d come to find out their sentiment would not have existed if I had a dog with me. Most solo female campers/van lifers have dogs, which I noted in the years to come. I love dogs, I’ve had dogs, I have one now. I didn’t have one then because it wouldn’t have allowed me to drink a little too much tequila one night, video a friend in Australia, decide I was going to apply for a Visa, then sit outside the library to steal Wi-Fi, so I could do so.
Okay, I probably would have still done that, but I wouldn’t have been able to actually go to Oz!
But I digress. My journal entry continued:
“I have a partner for the very beginning sliver of my hike tomorrow, a fella named Jon. He’s meeting me at my tent at 4:30. Now, I have to be up. Fuck.”
Some things don’t change. My angst about Monday mornings and early commitments, on any day, are two of those things.
Jon and I walked in the dark that next morning with headlamps for about an hour until we hit the trailhead around 5:30. I was hauling. Even Jon admitted being relieved whenever I wanted to take a break, which I reported in my journal wasn’t often (I also reported admitting to Jon that I wouldn’t have booked it like that if I hadn’t been with him, and he said the same of me).
We were really hauling ass.
It was the Mist Trail. Brutal. Heaps of stairs that seemed to go on forever, I was having flashbacks to the seemingly never ending switchbacks I had encountered down to Indian Garden in the Grand Canyon, never knowing which would be the last.
Years later, I would make this same hike as a climbing approach to the route “Snakedyke” after a night of far too much drugs and alcohol. I’ve been presented with drugs at every Camp 4 stay, and though I’ve never complained, I’ve also rarely made it on rock the following day. So, we didn’t climb it that day. We never even made it to the crag (the equivalent of a trailhead but for a climbing route). Bottom line, the whole thing was a big hungover fail. I did, however, make it on my birthday in 2016 for my first multi-pitch, and we had arrived at Yosemite without any climbing gear or friends in hopes to do our first multi-pitch on my birthday. We left with a handful of pitches under our belts, heaps of new buddies, and some gnarly hangovers survived.
Mist was a discouraging start for me, though; all those stairs at an accelerating elevation to initiate an anticipated ten to twelve hour hike?! Fuck me.
“It was mostly discouraging because I didn’t know when it would stop being that tough, or even if it would at all. No idea what I was in for.”
Turns out, the rest of the hike was much better.
“When we got to the top of Mist, we sat in a little remote spot away from the other people. We ate Clif bars and Kind bars, the pasta I had prepared the night before (yes, I packed pasta), and some summer sausage. We then parted ways; I continued up and Jon headed back down. I kept booking it, too. I articulate in my journal that I felt I had the hiker’s version of a runner’s high. After all, this was so profoundly unique to me in comparison to anything I had ever done.
I had picked up the pawn of an unhappy woman in a pantsuit who had been bound by society’s conformity, threw some hiking boots on her, placed her at the trailhead of a sixteen mile hike and said, “You got this! This is your life now!”
Fucking exiliterating.
Part of that exhilaration was probably coming from privilege and feeling as though I had always been relatively secure, but now, I had to be wise. On my own accord. I had learned lessons in earlier years in safety and trauma and believed that if I had overcome what I had, then I could continue to push through to achieve almost anything, anything that I wanted that is. And I very badly wanted to exponentially expand my comfort zone in this way.
I found myself at the top of the “cables,” which is the portion of the hike that gets you to the very top of Half Dome.
“It was crazy at the cables, though. First of all, the cables were crazy steep, but I no longer have a slight fear of heights (years in the making to disintegrate that fear!)”
I’d later skydive a handful of times to continue that disintegration.
“You have to hike up subdome first, which doesn’t have as much of a trail the whole way, a lot of scaling. I was so close, though! I could feel it!”
Turns out, some people had been trying for weeks to get the lottery… One guy had tried two years to get regular permits. They still hiked up to the cables in hopes to get an extra permit. I, on the other hand, entered once and got it. After finding out other people’s struggles on the way up, I stopped being verbally excited about having gotten it on the first try.
“Once I hit the cables, I couldn’t believe I wasn’t terrified. It was intimidating in pictures and more terrifying in person, I suppose. Yet, for whatever reason, I didn’t think twice. I got my gloves out and practically ran up!
Once I got to the top, oh, my God, once I got to the top. I’ve never felt a rewarding feeling like that before. To see such absolutely stunning beauty, and knowing that anyone who wanted the same (no matter how much money they had!) would have to put in the time and energy to cover the same ground to get to this spot… to see the same beauty and perfection. Damn, just pure bliss.”
I reported practically hanging off the edge with excitement in an attempt to take in as much as I could and keep my heart racing… keep in mind that I had adrenaline pumping through me and was in my twenties, still having somewhat of an invincibility complex.
“…I certainly got closer than anyone else up there. I ate my lunch on this off-hang (the usual peanut butter sandwich, a pb&j, plus some jerky and granola bars, been a real pig!) and made conversation with a doctor and sex traffic investigator.”
Good crowd.
I spent about an hour taking in the view. Then, for some reason when heading back down, I wanted to run. I was told that Mist Trail got super crowded late morning into early afternoon and that though the John Muir was longer, it’s less crowded plus less switchbacks and no stairs (my knees would thank me!). I was also told I could run it.
Not sure if that was the sex traffic investigator or doctor that mentioned that one…
“So, as soon as I got to the point where I had to decide between Muir and Mist, Muir it was, and run it, I did!”
“Most people either looked at me funny or said something about my stamina or ability, to which I laughed, of course (before taking a break to light a smoke).”
“One older gentleman in particular was hilarious. He was walking down and heard me coming. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around, sporting a safari-like hat and dark shades. He took the walking sticks he had in front of him with both hands, looked up at me in astonishment as he saw me coming his way:
‘You’re running!!!’
I grinned from ear to ear:
‘I have a cold twelver waiting for me at the bottom!’
Once I finally got to the bottom, I reached the shuttle stop and lay down on my back with all my limbs spread out until it arrived. I was exhausted. The thought of cold beer was the motivating factor to get up rather than resuming the position.
Village store, check.
Twelver of Coors Light, check.
Pack of smokes, check.
Back at camp, check.
Silence and reflection, check.
This was my happy place.
I had made it up in four hours and down in a little less than three.
As I approached my tent, I spotted the little tupperware container I had given Jon to take back filled with the pasta I had made. There was a note on top and $4 inside the tupperware.
When recounting the day to my journal, I wrote:
“I like Jon, and I think at that moment I decided I’d stay in touch with him on occasion to keep a friendship after Yosemite.”
The forty-eight hours after returning from Half Dome were an absolute blast, from what I remembered…
“…I exchanged a measly beer for about a cup worth of straight Jamo. Deeeeelish! The rest is a little blurry…”
There was hiking to see General Sherman (my sister and I would later start referring to it as Gen Sherm) and the other massive sequoias with Mario (pseudonym), whom I was not so gradually taking a liking to. My other sibling and I would later nickname him beefcake (not a pseudonym).
While I was all googly-eyed over beefcakes, humongous flora, and cups of whiskey, my new comrad Jon was not sharing my good fortune. After we parted ways at the end of Mist Trail, he headed to pick up his friend Adrian from the San Francisco airport. About two hours into his drive, he got cell service, followed by a text from Adrian that his flight was canceled and had been rescheduled for the next day. Simultaneously, Jon’s radiator blew and spewed what he estimated was ten gallons of coolant “like Vernal Falls.” After having his car towed to a shop, he took a cab to the park entrance for a whopping $130, then hitched back to Camp 4.
When hearing this news from my new friend, and realizing he now had no vehicle, was out a good chunk of change, and had a dear friend anticipating his arrival the following day with no foreseen way of retrieving him, I immediately offered a suggestion:
“Take my car!”
Jon looked both surprised and delighted, asking if I was sure that would be alright. It was, after all, an eight-hour round trip drive, with my leased vehicle, by a nearly complete stranger. But after hiking Mist Trail with him, receiving his note, and some “oily bills” in tupperware at my tent, I had all the information I needed to hand over the keys.
As he walked away to drive off, I chuckled at the fact that I didn’t know his last name or even have his phone number.
Well, I sure as shit hope nothing goes wrong.
When Jon arrived the next day with my car and Adrian safe and sound, I opened my car to find two sixers of great beer, a pack of Newport cigarettes, and a box of almond coconut KIND bars (my favorite at the time). I found this to be a very sweet gesture, and I was quite fond of Adrian, too, as I expected being a good pal of Jon’s. Adrian had come to join Jon for the summer; they were doing some sort of work exchange program at the park, so they could stay for the season and climb. We all got to know each other pretty well that night—drinking, sharing stories, laughing terribly loud. So loud that the park ranger had to come by twice to tell us to quiet down. The second time, he shined his flashlight at me and said,
“You in particular, ma’am.”
We found this hilarious at the time. Apparently when I had gone into my tent for something, I heard our camp neighbor, Sergio, say a smartass comment, to which I’m told I yelled:
“Fuck you, Sergio!”
As the park ranger had noted as well. At the end of the night, the four of us were sitting around the picnic table with our cocktails, and I drunkenly giggled as I looked at Mario, and then Jon and Adrian:
“Ya know, I had been worried when you guys took my car that you’d stumble upon something I forgot to get out of there before you left…”
Adrian, who had been relatively quiet, looked at me with a grin:
“You mean the purple cock?”
We all broke out in laughter as we realized that Jon and Adrian had, in fact, found my vibrator! I had mentioned to Mario that I had forgotten it in there but that it was under the front seat where “surely they wouldn’t look.” Jon then shared that they had been snacking on the long drive and went to clean out the car to make sure they didn’t leave any wrappers behind, and as they pulled out a plastic shopping bag, they opened it to reveal a big purple vibrator.
I’m sure the rest of the camp found this story pretty amusing as well, as there was nothing reticent about our dialogue or volume of conversation.
I left Camp 4 and Yosemite Valley a day or two later, Jon and Adrian were relocated to their seasonal housing elsewhere in the park, and Mario was moved on to another park for his job at Backroads. Adrian would never see me or my purple vibrator again. Mario, well, I would rendezvous with that beefcake in Wyoming, Florida, and Montana over the next handful of months. The following year, my sister and I would get together with Jon and get to meet his girlfriend (now wife!) in Boulder, CO. We exchanged stories, including the one about a vibrator in a shopping bag.
