Preparations

I can't believe that I'm awake at 3:40 am. I can't believe that I'm awake at 3:40 am and coherent! Duane and I have been adjusting our sleep schedules to wake up progressively earlier and earlier this past week. We started at 5:30 am and we're now up to 3:40 am. Tomorrow we will arise at 3:00 am, quickly dress, and hopefully be at the Panorama trailhead by 4:00 am.

Tomorrow is the big day! We will attempt to summit Half Dome. We're not going to take the usual trail from Happy Isles. We're leaving from the Panorama trail - we're trading an extra mile and a half for 2000 feet of elevation gain. And of course, much more beautiful vistas!

One of the most important preparations I made was to get my annual physical completed yesterday morning. I am healthier now on nearly all counts than I was a year ago. My HDLs are betters, my triglycerides and blood pressure are down and my weight is lower by about ten pounds. The only cause of concern is a bit of anemia, likely the result of a hormonal imbalance causing too lengthy menstrual bleeding. While that hormonal imbalance had already been addressed, I'm still a bit anemic. Red blood cells, the cells that carry oxygen through the body, take a week or longer to form. This may have an effect at higher altitude, but I can't be sure what stresses my body will be able to withstand until I get there.

I packed my backpack before going to bed last night. I made a trip to REI yesterday to stock up on some electrolyte beans, trail bars and a better trail map of the Half Dome hike. We also have some extra gear with us this time. We each have a climbing harness, a runner, and two carabiners for clipping on to the cable during the last section of the hike. And an extra pair of sticky gloves for gripping the cable.

The last loads of laundry are running now. Now all I need to pack are a change of clothes, some toiletries and a swimsuit. (The swimsuit is for when we get back to Tenaya Lodge and the hot tub!)

Unfortunately, none of the people that we asked to go with us were able to make it, so we will have to take both of our cars and drive separately. We'll park one car at Curry Village the night before, using the other car to take us to Glacier Point the next morning. We'll pick up a deli sandwich for tomorrow on the way to the Lodge. The radios are charging for inter-car communications.

We had dinner last night at a friend's restaurant with mentor Deb for some last minute coaching. As it turns out, our friend, the owner of the restaurant, had also hiked Half Dome with his wife last weekend. So he treated us to photos of his hike. Wow!

I think we're ready. We're as ready as we'll ever be this season. Our coach thinks we're ready.

It's Half Dome or bust!

Preparations and List Making

Today was the final day to make preparations, and buy any supplies needed for our hike. My husband Duane, a great list maker, made a list of all of the things we would not want to forget on our trip.

Meanwhile, I made preparations of my own by doing the household chores and ran several errands around town, not only for myself, but also for Duane, our son, and his weekend caretaker, Uncle Dave.

Among the many things I did today:

• I visited the Good Feet store in Campbell and had my right orthotic adjusted. It hasn't felt quite right on the last couple of hikes. I wore my hiking boots with my orthotics in them all day to ensure that my feet would remain comfortable and used to the orthotics.
• I made a last minute trip to REI, where I purchased myself a sweatband. After the last couple of hikes, I decided I was really tired of sweating into my glasses. I purchased a wicking sweatband. Duane also wanted a new sweatband, but unfortunately there was only one selection for wicking sweatbands and this one was too small to fit his head. He will have to make do with the one that he has. I also picked up some sports beans of the kind that Duane likes.
• While at REI, I also happened to see some neck-cooling bandanas of the kind that mentor Deb was handing out at Mission Peak. At that time, I declined to take one, but today I reconsidered since that sounded like a really good idea. These bandanas have little water-absorbing beads sewn into them. You soak them in water for twenty minutes and they swell up, holding cool water for days at a time. The water keeps the neck cool and you comfortable while hiking. Since the one that Deb gave Duane split at the seams (unfortunately, he didn't realize he couldn't leave it in water indefinitely...), so I picked up one for him too in his favorite colors - teal and turquoise.
• I did all of the laundry so there would be no issues of the clothes we wanted to take not being clean and ready to be packed.
• I visited Costco and picked up some VitaRain vitamin water as well as some bottled water. We'll use the bottled water for our hydration packs.
• I shopped at Safeway for our favorite flavors of Gatorade.
• Stopped in at Barnes & Noble to purchase our son some activity workbooks for the car.

Later on, we laid out all of our gear on the kitchen table after dinner, and packed our packs, except for those last minute items. In the course of doing this, we noticed that Duane's hydration bladder had something yucky growing in it that was making his water taste awful. I took his bladder, filled it about halfway with water and then poured some bleach into it. We let it sit in the bladder for half and hour, then turned it over and let it sit again for another half an hour. Duane then rinsed his bladder out so there wouldn't be any bleach residue. If this doesn't work, he's going to have to buy a new bladder tomorrow on our way out of town, but he said it tastes fine.

All I have to do tomorrow morning is throw some clothes in my suitcase and we'll be out the door! Yosemite, here we come!