Wednesday 22.7. (Yosemite)

We set off on a longer walk, this time it is Half Dome. It makes the total of about 25 kilometers with the elevation of 1500 meters, so that we made about 40 km in Yosemite during our stay. We get up at 6 to avoid the heat (which we in the end did not avoid but eliminate, at least). The morning is very pleasant even if a steep walking up the hill starts right from the beginning. On the first kilometers we pass nice waterfalls Vernal and Nevada, where the water-drops cool us. Whole trip is pretty challenging, not comparable to anything I met with in the Czech Republic (rather to High Tatras in Slovakia). Around 11 we get to the rocky dome, swimming in the sweat. Here comes the best part -- to the top of the mountain, it is possible to get without the proper rock-climbing stuff only up on one of the rock's sites (about 150 vertical meters), which has on some places a 75 deg. angle and is rather smooth, the rock is slippery. To the top of the rock go cables so that one uses more hands than legs. From the top, there is an excellent view and many marmots and squirels which steal food from tourists (we already had one of the little thieves in our anti-bear box locked in, but we found the "hungry" squirel only after one hour, with a round belly full of our only bread left).