Clouds Rest, Half Dome & Mist Trail - Backpacking Yosemite National Park

Clouds Rest, Half Dome & Mist Trail - Backpacking Yosemite National Park

Finally got to Yosemite. This took way too long. But when we finally went, we went big, hitting up some of the main attractions at the park; The Mist Trail, Clouds Rest and Half Dome. Then we went and backpacked something else right after. So we got our Yosemite fix and absolutely fell in love with the place.

First and foremost, permits. Permits aren't super easy to get for the popular parts of Yosemite. But we made it work. Look into those if you want to do this because it can alter your route a lot.

In our case, I think that helped. We couldn't get the 'standard' route from Happy Isles, so we started looking for other options. Those lead us to the Sunrise Lake trailhead. That cut out a lot of the elevation gain getting to Clouds Rest. Of course, if we could figure out a way to communicate with mosquitos, there were enough of them up by Tenaya Lake that we could have had them just pick us up and fly us up there.

There were a lot of mosquitos.

Anyway, Clouds Rest was a highlight. I actually liked it better than Half Dome. It just seemed impossibly high and the Sierras stretched on as far as the eye could see in every direction. It was just an amazing feeling of isolation and beauty.

Next was Half Dome. Bring gloves. Bring a right and left hand glove instead of two right handed gloves like I did. That wasn't smart. The cables weren't hard on your hands going up, but I got blisters coming down. So how sketchy was Half Dome? I'm pretty comfortable with that type of thing and even though I brought a tether, I ended up not using it. But if you are in doubt, I would recommend a harness & a via ferrata lanyard. I mean, why not? Honestly, there were sections that were so steep, I don't think I could have stopped from sliding off without the boards and cables. I was pretty surprised by that; usually I find the sketchiness of things to be over-stated. Not here. If you started sliding, you would slide right off. Not the hike for those who are afraid of sketchy situations. I'd also recommend going early to avoid crowds. No one was really struggling while we were there, but you don't want to get stuck between people freaking out in that type of situation.

Finally, it was time for the Mist Trail. It was unbelievably beautiful. And very believably crowded. That was to be expected since we got there later in the morning when the crowds were already up and about. It's one of (if not the) most popular trails in a very popular national park, so that's to be expected. Still, it was amazing and absolutely worth it.

Side note; if you go to Yosemite, check and see if you need a pre-purchased pass to enter the park. When we went, you needed one. They were easy to get online, but we saw A LOT of cars at the park entrance being turned away. Probably because they didn't know the reservations were required. That would stink to drive to California just to be told you can't even get in.

Anyway, enough writing. Time to get back to editing the next video.

Music by Artlist:
Like a River - ORKAS
Heartsease - Roie Shpigler
Silver Lining - tommmy
ANXIETY - Vava
Ascension - Amir Marcus
Variations on Ah vous dirai-je Maman
Gratitude - Max H
Woods & Fields - Paper Wings
Believe For Free - Tiko Tiko
Wings of Imagination - Ian Post