August 12

Clouds Rest/JMT Junction to Happy Isles Trailhead – 10.8 miles

Eager to climb Half Dome without the crowds, I was up and on the trail early. I’d camped only about half a mile from the two mile spur trail off the JMT up to Half Dome. And shortly after starting my climb, I ran into none other than Somer who was descending. She and Harrison had climbed Half Dome in the dark and had watched sunrise from the summit. After they rejoined the JMT from VVR late afternoon the day that I had, they had put in some long days and had caught me without us knowing. It turned out that they had camped near my campsite the night prior. Jason had opted to skip Half Dome and had headed to the valley to catch a bus to the airport. I later ran into Harrison coming down the lower section of Half Dome itself.

The cable section was largely free of other hikers at that early hour so I made good time going up. I didn’t stay long as the smoke obscured much of the views, and I was anxious to meet up with Hunter and Maria who were hiking up the Mist Trail to meet me. Progress down the trail was slowed several times by the groups heading up, but when clear of these groups I made good time. I stopped at the bridge on Mist Trail to take in a view of Nevada Falls and when I turned around, Hunter and Maria were just coming over a rise. Perfect timing! We opted to skip the rest of the Mist Trail which was quite crowded, and climbed up to the main trail, which was also busy, but we worked our way through the groups as rapidly as I could manage, and then I errantly took us down the horse path to Happy Isles. It was a fortuitous mistake as there were few people on the trail, unlike the section we would have been on past Vernal Falls. We missed the iconic Muir Trail sign (and I didn’t feel like backtracking in the crowds), so we instead posed for a picture by the Happy Isles bridge.

The trek was complete; on my planned schedule and greeted on the trail by my oldest son and Maria! All I needed now was a shower, beer and food, and we managed that in pretty short order after walking to the tent cabin in Curry Village. And after finding a weak cell signal I was able to reach Somer and Harrison. Somer had already taken a bus to the airport, but Harrison soon joined us on the Curry Village patio for pizza and beer. And good news for him, we had an extra bed with shower access to share. We later headed over to the Ahwahnee for beers and hoped to catch a shuttle to Yosemite Lodge for dinner, but we soon learned that Yosemite shuttles were few and packed so we walked back to Curry Village just in time to grab dinner at the buffet.

And just like that, my long anticipated trek on the JMT was done. Now the challenge is to keep a steady of tempo of adventures for as long as I can!