Wednesday, 20 July 5.5 miles, 4:34
Half Dome
It was very quiet in camp last night, especially considering the dozens of people tented there. It got cold enough that I zipped up my bag. I arose at 7:20, got water, made tea, and got packed. We were walking by 9:10. We saw many hikers headed for Half Dome and we had many great views of it, especially the intimidating-looking cables route. The climbing was easy today with broad, smooth trail and mellow grades but we felt the elevation in our hungry lungs and had to move slowly. Today’s trail was more open and we saw more of the landscape of sparsely wooded, smooth granite domes, some with snow. The trees are broad, tall, and widely spaced, ancient-looking with their deeply furrowed bark and fire-blackened trunks. Among them grow expanses of what looks like a tiny, ground-hugging lupine , which I later learned to be Brewers Lupine (Lupinus breweri). I have seen pine cones that are nearly as big as my head. I do not recognize the trees, the flowers, the creatures here. I have no ken for these woods. I am an alien here. Slowly, though, I am beginning to make their acquaintance.
Chelsea with tiny lupines and huge trees
Tonight we are camped at eighty-five hundred feet at a crossing of Sunrise Creek and at the base of the steep climb of Sunrise Mountain. Raucous Stellar’s jays are squawking boldly overhead and some sort of chickadee calls intermittently. Today I saw: Western blue bellied lizard, Western azalea (very aromatic), Mule ears, red Snowplant (Sarcodes sanguinea), Jeffrey pine (Pinus jefreyii, big trees, huge cones), American robin, Golden-crowned kinglet (heard only), Incense cedar.
