It was from here also that our party of 6 got separated. James and Thomas climbed a bit faster than the rest of us, so we decided not to follow them and take our own pace. This was a wise decision because we still had a lot of hiking ahead of us.
And after a while our smaller group got separated again. Rudy and me found our second breath and started to accelerate a bit more and not stopping so much anymore. Orsi and Jon stayed on their own space.
When Rudy and me reached the foot of the last climb, we met up again with James and Thomas who were waiting there. I told Rudy that I would climb straight to the top from here and that I wouldn't stop until I reached it. Rudy decided to wait with James and Thomas for a while. When I reached the top of this very hard climb I felt superb. I did it!!!!! I reached some sort of platform just before the real top of the Half Dome. Since I'm a little bit afraid of heights I decided not to go up the chains to the top of Half Dome. There was also a lot of wind up there and I thought I couldn't make it to the top. So I just sat down and tried to shield myself a bit from this icecold wind. I ate my lunch, it was now around 11.00 am so I was quite hungry. And after a few minutes I saw Pascal. He tried to go up the chains, but since he is also afraid of heights he didn't make it all the way and decided to come down again.
We sat there a while and then James, Rudy and Thomas came along. We talked a bit about our experience on top of this amazing mountain and then they went up the chains. Then we saw Will and Norine coming down. We ate some snacks and then Orsi and Jon came to join us. After some minutes they also went up the chains. I decided to hike down with Will, Pascal and Norine. There was no reason to stay here and get my but frozen off!!! |
