Awesome Hike!

On Saturday, our big Team in Training event day, we had an awesome 8-hour, 9-mile hike on Yosemite's Panorama Trail. At 6:30am we took vans to our starting point up high at the Glacier Point overlook. Here we saw the entire valley far below, and Half Dome looming far above us just across a narrow deep canyon. The trail dipped down, rose 800 feet, and descended 4000 feet past three major waterfalls -- Illilouette, Nevada, and Vernal -- and ended low at the valley floor. The views were really stunning along the whole trail. We both found this hike to be relatively easy, compared to many of our recent local training hikes. I had worried that my recovering knee would still have problems with a very long hike with lots more downhill than I have managed recently. But my knees were fine all day long.

We hiked in a group of ten team friends plus Roddy, a professional guide. The weather was perfect, sunny but cool, with lots of shade on the trail. There was a lot more fast water flowing on Illilouette Creek than I expected from our distant view two months ago.

One woman in our group suffered jammed big toes from inadequate, wrong-sized tennis shoes, which slowed us up by over an hour. (She had given up finding well-fitting boots after only one pair; we are on our 7th pair.) She gutted through the last mile of the hike without her shoes, just socks.

Other friends were on the three official and one unofficial TnT groups doing Half Dome this day. The perfect weather gave them ideal safe conditions for the very steep cable section. The slowest group completed well after dark, much later than planned. They were slowed down by a hiker with a undisclosed fear of heights (on Half Dome!!). And by another hiker with pre-existing knee problems. And by long waiting lines at the few toilets along the trail. Their primary guide took on carrying three backpacks -- his own, plus those of the two hikers with problems.

Given how well my knee performed, I think we could have managed Half Dome too. But there was no way to tell without first doing a major hike without pain. I could have been the hiker causing major problems for a Half Dome team.

After the hike, we took an extremely crowded Yosemite free shuttle bus from the trailhead to a gathering point at Yosemite Lodge. The bus could only creep along, but all non-bus traffic was totally gridlocked on this busy Saturday; the worst I've ever seen there. From the Lodge, we escaped from the valley by van.

We both felt great after our Panorama hike, and danced a bit at our celebration dinner event!