The Night Before the Morning After

We began the three plus hour drive to Half Dome on Friday at about 11:00 am, after stopping for In-n-Out burgers. We were mindful of the temperature as we drove to Yosemite. Our car thermometers both read 100 degrees on the drive over. We had been watching the forecast with interest for the past week, ever last Sunday's rain. The forecast had been for 90 degree weather at Yosemite, but that had been revised downward to 85 degrees as of today. Neither of us wanted to do this hike in 90 to 100 degree heat.

Because we were doing our hike one way from Glacier Point to Happy Isles and because the shuttle from Happy Isles to Glacier Point doesn't run frequently in the evening, we decided to pre-position a car at Happy Isles. This involved driving two cars into the valley floor, leaving the "welcome car" at Curry Village, and then taking the second car to Tenaya Lodge, an additional hour's drive.

But how would we communicate between cars on this long drive? We had the option of using FRS/GMRS walkie talkies, cell phones or, since Duane and I are both ham radio operators, our ham radios. Since we didn't want to pay cell phone charges and since the range and battery life of FRS/GMRS radios are rather limited, we decided to use our ham radios. From my perspective, this was actually one of the best outcomes of this trip because Duane, although licensed, isn't as interested in the hobby and doesn't practice his operating skills. By day's end he had memorized his call sign (at last!), was more familiar with his handheld transceiver (HT), and was beginning to be more comfortable operating a radio.

We left a change of comfortable shoes, an ice pack, an ice chest with cold drinks, some spare (hidden) cash, and a warm sweatshirt in the welcome car at Curry Village. We then asked someone in the parking lot at Curry Village to take a photograph of us in front of Half Dome. Then we headed out in the other car towards this evening's destination - Tenaya Lodge.

We arrived at 6:00 pm, checked in, and ate dinner. We did some carb loading. Both of us had pasta and a salad, and I drank several glasses of water - as much as I could hold. Dinner was good, but the the staff was short-handed so the service was poor.

The next big decision was what time to set for our wake up call. I wanted to set the wake up call for 2:30 am, while Duane wanted 3:00 am. Against my better judgment, I deferred to Duane. We also set the alarm clock as a back up. It would take us about 30-45 minutes to drive from Tenaya Lodge to Glacier Point and the trailhead for the Panorama Trail. We needed to leave Tenaya Lodge by 3:15 am at the latest for a 4:00 am start. I didn't think we could get dressed, etc., in less than half an hour.

We set out our hiking clothes, and I prepared my pack, filled my 3 liter hydration bladder, soaked my neckerchief, and got it ready to go. Duane had everything set out to put in his pack, but didn't actually pack it.

We've been adjusting our sleep schedules for days, getting up ever earlier each morning. This morning we were up at 3:40 am. So we were both very tired and we expected it would not be difficult to get to sleep at such an early hour. We were hoping that all of this preparation would pay off tomorrow.