Day #50 El Capitan

I had not entirely recovered from the past couple of days‘ climbing but as those were my last four days in Yosemite, I figured I had to hike up to El Capitan.

I got up early and started in shade, but soon the sun came out and it wasn‘t friendly. Endless granite switchbacks climbed past Upper Yosemite Fall to the top. My knees were hurting badly but I pushed myself up on my hiking poles. It was a beautiful hike and shortly before noon, I reached El Cap!

It‘s big, also from above – at first I had to quench my hunger and thirst before I could continue to hike to the very edge of the dome. Right there important history happened 26 years ago – this was were Lynn Hill had climbed up and finished the first free ascent of „The Nose“, I thought and touched the rocks, full of emotions. For a while, I was alone up there, just me and the wind.

Hiking down was very hard and it took me another 3 hours. The light kept changing and allowed me to take millions of pictures of Half Dome and the Valley.

My dinner was very yummy: beef with spinach, cheese and tomatoe sauce wrapped in a burrito. I had to eat in my tent as the wasps were circling the food aggressively. Later I got to taste a typical IPA beer – Hazy Daze – a Californian brew, for the first time. I didn‘t like the pine-tree aftertaste and the structure of the beer but I might give it another try!