One Best Hike: Yosemite's Half Dome
Yosemite's Half Dome
Successfully hike Yosemite’s most famous landmark with the guide that helps you prepare and provides the details you need to know.
Getting to the top of Yosemite National Park’s Half Dome in California is one of America’s epic day hikes. Starting in Yosemite Valley, you’ll ascend nearly one vertical mile past two impressive waterfalls, through fragrant pine, fir, and cedar forests, then 425 feet up sheer granite on the famed steel cables to the summit, where you’ll enjoy some of the grandest views of your life. If you do it right, you’ll be back down in the valley, celebrating your accomplishment, later that evening.
While tremendously rewarding, this hike is also one of the park’s most strenuous. Here’s everything you need to know to successfully make the 15-plus-mile trek. This step-by-step guidebook by Rick Deutsch tells you exactly how to hit the trail with confidence.
Inside you’ll find:
- Detailed, specific advice on the proper physical conditioning
- Trail-tested list of what to wear and bring on the hike
- Historical vignettes and 18 key points of interest along the trail, with GPS markers
- More than 100 photos so you know what to expect
One Best Hike: Yosemite’s Half Dome, with its can-do approach, nuts-and-bolts advice, and practical tips, will leave you wondering why you’ve waited so long to embark on this truly special hiking adventure.
Rick Deutsch lives in San Jose, California, with his wife, Diane. A veteran of Silicon Valley high tech, Rick is an adventure traveler. Some of his personal bests include rafting through the Grand Canyon (three times); ascending California’s Mount Whitney and Mount Shasta; pedaling the 500-mile Iowa RAGBRAI cross-state bike tour (two times); mountain biking in Moab, Utah; 250 scuba dives, including Papua New Guinea, Palau, Truk Lagoon, the Caribbean, and the Galapagos; hiking Peru’s Machu Picchu; and dogsledding in Alaska. It was after his 17th trek up Half Dome that he decided to write this guide to help others enjoy this fun and rewarding hike. As of press time, he has hiked Half Dome 31 times.
