World Travel Stories

It was early in the morning.

Before sunrise.  We had an appointment with Tony, our native jeep driver, which would guide us for the day into Monument Valley, show us the land he loved so much , and much more… The first destination was a viewpoint, where according to Tony, the sunrise was the most beautiful.  We drove into the dark on the jeep tracks – I wondered all the time how he knew which way to go, because most of the (moonlit) views appeared similar to me.  The place was called the ‘Totempole‘ – as all rocks had a name for him, a lot of names were invented just for the tourists, the Navajo had their own names. Sunrise was soon there, and the view of the rising sun next to the ‘totempole’ was indeed spectacular.  Minutes later it was full daylight, and another hot day had started.

Tony took us to many other places, like ‘artist view’ (the most used view in paintings, photographs, and in movies), the ‘moccasin arch’, and numerous others from which I forgot the names.  He also showed us several plants growing in the desert and pointed out animal tracks.  Next thing to do was to hike to the top of a mesa.  Like real spidermen and -women, we used the rope net – Tony didn’t need this, he attached the net for us.  On top, the sight was like that of a moonlandscape.  It was getting hot already; Tony learned us how to use ‘natural cooling’ by laying down on your back onto the rock.  Later we were back on the road and drove into the arches landscape.  We stopped by a kind of a cave.  Tony now played on a little drum (made of the oil filter of a truck and animal skin) and sung a traditional song.  He learned us how to dance like the natives and we all tried this together.  It was a nice moment of the trip.  To finish the jeep tour, he took us to a traditional hogan, where we could see a woman spinning wool.

The Hogan

Another day in Monument Valley, we all went to go horseback riding.  This was the typical ‘tourist thing’ to do, and the horses were very tame.  I had never been on a horse before, but this was really easy : the horse just followed the path it knew very well.  I guess this was not at all typical for the ‘real wild west’ , as we knew from the movies…   It is true that mass tourism over here spoiled the real experience, but what I remember the most were the evenings on the camping site.  Camping between the buttes and mesas is really spectacular, and at sunset I watched for hours the ever changing colours of the rocks.

Half Dome

Early in the morning, I started at the visitor centre (alt. about 1200 m) for a hike to ‘Half Dome’ (alt. 2695 m).  A lot of rocks and lakes have special names in the valley, this one got his because it resembles a dome split in half, although scientists think it never really was a ‘full dome’ rock. This hike took me about 10 hours round-trip.  The brochure in the visitor centre states ‘a tiring hike with unsurpassed views…’.  It was around 28 degrees C that day, so better take enough water too.

The first leg of this hike took us along the Merced river and into the giant pine tree forests.  In this rocky landscape, a river means… waterfalls ! Indeed, not long after we started we took the ‘mist trail’, a staircase type of trail up to the Vernal Falls (1538 m – around 100 m drop !).  This trail is always slippery and you can feel the waterfall as you approach it, when the wind blows in the right direction.  Passed this falls, the trail goes on towards yet another one,  ‘Nevada falls‘ (1801 m).  A little bridge crossing the river on top of the waterfall permits you to have some spectacular views.  But we were only halfway.

From here on, the Half Dome trail took a big detour around the rock giants like ‘Liberty Cap’ (2157 m).  All along the way we could see some high peaks, but of course we were focussed on our end point ‘Half Dome’, which was visible from different directions.   The trail now took us into dense pine tree forests, and was slowly ascending.  When we came out of the forests, a rocky path lay before us, now the ascent was faster, and when we looked behind, fantastic views of the Sierra Nevada were visible.

Steel cables 

Finally we reached the base of ‘Half Dome’.  From here on , the real work began ! To get to the top, you have to do the ‘steel cables’.  The slope is about 60 degrees, clearly to much to be able to walk on.  For this purpose, poles are dug into the rock, and a pair of steel cables connect all of them and allow you to walk onto the rock by holding the steel cables (don’t forget to put gloves on !).  From time to time wooden planks allow you to rest a little. And to be honest, it is tiring ! When you are up the rock, the wind blows into your face and when you look to your left or right, all you can see is granite.  It took me quite some time to get to the top (from my memory I guess about 30 minutes), but the reward for this ‘suffering’ was high : the view on the top is just superb and the ‘on-the-top-feeling’ just heavenly.  There is not a lot of space on the top, but even up here the squirrels get  to steal some of your cookies or sandwiches.  We drank lots of water because we were almost dehydrated from the steel cable climb.

But our adventure was not over yet.  As we went down (again the steel cables), we were stopped about halfway.  Someone had fallen and lay unconscious between the cables. Rescue people were already helping him.  Nobody could go up or down as the ‘path’ between the cables was now blocked.  We stopped and sat down on one of the wooden planks but I can assure you that’s not easy and – to me at least – a little frightening experience.  But we had another problem.  We had to be back in time to meet our bus back in the valley.  So we had to find a way to get off this rock.  After some talking to the rescue team, they allowed us to pass by the fallen man, on the outside of the cables, only holding one cable, and going very slowly.  This is the part of this hike I would not like to do again, because it felt quite dangerous.  By the time we got down, a helicopter landed near the base of ‘Half Dome’.  There was now a big crowd over there waiting till the way was clear to go up the rock again.  I never heard again about the unfortunate man, but I hope he survived his adventure.

Now we were a little late to get back, and decided to go a little faster, after all it was all the way down.  The last two hours, we had run out of water (all of the three litres had gone).  Imagine our happiness when we saw a fountain with drinking water after an hour or more of thirsty hiking.  This was probably the best drinking water ever.  We arrived in time at the bus and went for pizza in the visitor centre.  We were hungry and tired, but we made it !  And that was such a good feeling.