home at last...final posting in THIS series (china blog up next!)

Home sweet home. This is the last in the series, as I’ve finally returned from my exploration of the USA. Over the two month period of being on the road I think I satisfied most of my goals to see, meet, and hike America, but there’s a lot more I would have liked to do. Gives me the incentive to do it again…
I was trying to count up the states I’ve hit and discovered it was easier to count the ones I didn’t. Looks like I was in 39 states and covered just over 17,000 miles, averaging about 7+ miles of hiking per day (over 500 miles!). On the continental US, I missed only Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Arizona (which I’ve been to many times). Maybe in a few years when I walk across America I’ll take in the rest of those states…
When I posted last, I was in Cedar City, Utah doing my laundry. I grabbed a quick meal and headed west on hiway 56 towards Nevada. Not too many cars on the road until I got south on US93 in Nevada, which is designated as a scenic drive. I then turned north on what is called the ‘alien’ hiway, for reasons unknown to me. As I turned off I saw the sign ‘next services 150 miles’. Aaaahhh, the joys of having a high-mileage vehicle. This ‘alien’ road, hiway 375, had only one settlement on it which, naturally, featured the Alien Inn, complete with spacecraft out in the parking lot. Cute. I can see why aliens may have landed there because this 100 mile stretch was pretty desolate and deserted – I saw maybe 15 cars going the other direction. Perhaps the aliens scared them off.
It was getting dark after I turned west again on slightly-more-used hiway 6, so I found a rest stop and set up the tent. There weren’t any ‘no camping’ signs and it was actually inside the Toyiabe National Forest, so I figured I’d have a good story for any cop who bothered me in the middle of the night. But as usual, none did, and no spacecraft landed nearby, so it was a pretty boring evening looking at the lights of Nellis AFB down the hill (I was at 6200 feet). The temperature dropped down to 37 degrees just as it had at Zion, but I was prepared so I had a reasonably warm night. In the morning I zipped into Tonopah, Nevada for gas and breakfast and headed towards the east entrance of Yosemite, Tioga Pass. As usual when I drive 395, I had to stop at Mono Lake, which just fascinates me with its surreal tufa formations.
I hit Tioga Pass about noon. Tioga is over 10,000 feet in elevation and I decided to tune up my lungs with a short hike at that altitude. Didn’t want to wear out my legs for the 18-mile Half Dome hike the next day, but it was worth it to add slightly to my conditioning. Let me tell you, that was the most physically-challenging 2-mile hike I’d ever done! I must have stopped about 4 times on the way up this fairly steep trail, which I’m guessing topped out at over 11,000 feet. Not too much oxygen up there, my lungs kept telling me…I decided to bag a couple of nearby peaks while I was up on the ridge, so it actually came out to about 4 miles.
I was surprised to find the campgrounds nearly full in the Yosemite valley floor. Being as it’s early October and mid-week, I expected very few people but I guess Yosemite is a real international draw. I heard so many different languages in the campground, most of which I couldn’t identify.
The hiking portion of my trip ended badly, however. My goal was to start on the Half Dome trail the next day by 7am, as I still needed to drive to Reno when I was done hiking. My record time up and down Half Dome is 7 hours, but I was a bit younger and fitter then. I hit the trail just after 7am (funny: a bear was in the parking lot and had broken into one of the ‘bear-proof’ lockers and was having breakfast – instead of chasing him away like they tell you to, I let him munch – less chance he’d break into my car). But instead of ‘going up Half Dome’ my hike turned into ‘going up TO Half Dome’.
Here’s the deal: I had an absolutely fantastic hike up to the cables, which are the last 1000 yards of the hike to get you up on top of the peak. The granite at that point is at nearly a 45 degree angle so you have to pull yourself up the cables. Because thousands of people go up the cables every year, the rock is very slick – and I had chosen to try to get ‘one last hike’ out of my sneakers instead of wearing the brand new pair I had in the car. My shoes simply couldn’t get any traction, so I got about ¼ of the way up the cables and had to turn back. It’s hard enough to admit defeat – but it’s even harder to admit defeat at the hands of your own stupidity. Much harder than being defeated by, say, a couple of mountain lions.
As I say, I had the easiest hike up Half Dome ever. I surely would have equaled or beaten my personal best. The fact that I’d been doing so much hiking, combined with being at altitude for most of the last couple of weeks, made it almost a cruise to the cables. I’ll probably never have the same situation again, so I’m really angry with myself. I felt like going back down to the parking lot, changing shoes and starting up again! But 17 miles is a long way, and 34 would be out of reach. Even a second day of 17 wouldn’t have been too much fun, even if I’d had the time.
But hey - for the most part it HAS been a great trip. I’ve decided there are 5 places that I absolutely HAVE to get back to – but they happen to be in all corners of the US, so it’ll be several trips, I think. I need to get back to Glacier (Montana), Acadia (Maine), the Florida Keys, Big Bend (Texas), and southern Utah. Those last two I could probably do in one 3-week trip…if I can figure out how to get Naomi to let me go again, or figure out how to bring her along without making her sleep on the ground. I’ll have to work on that…
My drive to Reno after the hike was uneventful – I had to basically go back out of Yosemite the way I came in and then go north on hiway 395. That’s always been one of my favorite roads in California, so I enjoyed the fall colors in the Eastern Sierras. I took care of my business in Reno and then headed home at last – with one last snowstorm over the Sierras to drive through. But my trusty Prius and I made it safely and are now back in my family’s good graces (and the dogs, too). I averaged 52.3 mpg on the trip, buying just under $1000 worth of gas (at an average price of $2.92).
Next up, I’ll be heading over to Shanghai for almost five weeks starting October 19th. I will post some blogs from there, for those who are interested in whatever adventures I have in China…likely to be at least some of the culinary type! I shudder in anticipation…
Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it! I heard a couple of people tell me they were traveling vicariously through me, so I guess it served a purpose. And I had fun sharing my experiences. Now it’s YOUR turn!