Half Dome hike at Yosemite

My girlfriend and I spent three days with her father and brother in a camper in the Sierra Nevada mountains near Mammoth, Calif. Her father is an experienced outdoorsman who asked us to pick our activities upon arrival. We hiked to the modest waterfall near our campsite, visited a vacant bear den, watched a couple movies, drove to the many mile-high lakes and more impressive falls, observed a boiling hot creek from an elevated cliff and hiked into the snowy-bottomed San Andreas fault and one of its dark caves.

All this sounds post-your-pictures worthy, but none of it compared to what we barely accomplished on our last full day in the Sierras.

"We could hike Half Dome at Yosemite," her dad suggested on our first day in the mountains. "But I'm not going to lie to you; it's an intense, 12-to-14 hour hike."

My girlfriend and I glanced at each other for less than a second. "Sure."

I had never heard of Half Dome since it is a continent away from where I live, so I judged it as easy. It was not even a whole dome by name. I should have researched Half Dome on my phone after my blind consent for reasons you will learn. Here are two of the least compelling reasons: The Half Dome hike is 8.6 miles one-way with a 4,800-foot ascent.

"We'll have to get rolling at 5 a.m." he said. We did exactly that 36 hours later. The truck ride to the hike's launching point lasted a bit more than two hours. We slept most of the way.

The first part of the hike was a steep, paved trail along a whitewater. My girlfriend struggled with altitude after a matter of minutes. I was worried. We stopped for a snack break at a bathroom with running water and drinking fountains. Energized and optimistic, we chose to start on a set of mountain switchbacks instead of taking the shorter but steeper Mist Trail, a path that sprayed mist onto hikers from the majestic Vernal and Nevada Falls.

Park officials had posted sad reminders of three hikers' deaths from one week earlier around the bathrooms. The hikers took the Mist Trail and swam between the two falls in the Merced River, which had unusually dangerous currents because of extensive winter snowfall. They went over Vernal Fall.

Despite our more distant approach to the top of the higher Nevada Fall, we still got a great view at the end of several switchbacks. Here is one of them.



Here is another looking down from the top of Nevada Fall.



The trail eased into a flat, sandy path after the top of the fall until we reached a sign that advised hikers on bear encounters. The bears that inhabit Yosemite and most of the 48 states are black bears, the kind you would most like to have visit your campsite. Black bears are only interested in hikers and campers for the food they carry or store. A mother black bear is also mean if you get near her cub. Besides these instances, they would rather avoid the hassle of a human encounter. Hikers are supposed to hold hands and act ferocious if they see a black bear. I was not worried about bears, but I should have been worried about something else.

The hike's incline increased until we reached the base of a rock dome just below Half Dome. Several hikers on their way down told us the smaller rock dome's stone steps were the hardest part of the hike. We were woefully behind pace to make it back to the truck with daylight, so we had to decide whether we would continue to the summit or safely retreat.

"I am not going this far without making it to the top," my girlfriend said. I agreed.

The steps themselves were not difficult for me, but I did feel afraid of height for the first time in my life. The steps were secure enough, but a dehydrated hiker could easily slip and slide down the smooth rock face for hundreds of feet on either side. My girlfriend lost her breath in the middle of this smaller dome, but we were fortunate to sit and collect ourselves for a few minutes before reaching the base of Half Dome.



Seeing the final 400-foot rock climb in a glance was more terrifying than gratifying. The summit was deemed impossible in the 1870s. Somebody must have hiked it because the park drilled two lines of poles into the rock dome and threaded parallel cables through these poles so that lay hikers could use four contact points during their ascent. Traffic between the cables always goes both ways, so hikers' lives depend on communicating with each other. Many hikers get this close only to turn around because of height, steepness and traffic. Not seeing this arrangement until I was there was a mistake.

I would have turned around like so many do, but the descending hikers insisted the cable ascent was easier than the stair climb. So up I went with my girlfriend 15 feet in front of me.

This final climb up Half Dome is squeezed on either side by a 4,800-foot drop to the Yosemite Valley floor. I wisely decided not to look and kept my eyes directed at my feet and hands. I figured I could not fall if I moved one limb at a time and avoided panic. I missed a right-hand reach for a cable but maintained my balance. I waited a few minutes to collect myself and continued to the top. I laughed at myself for thinking an hour before that I could focus on my girlfriend's progress in addition to my own.

I felt lucky to be at the top for a spectacular view but unlucky to have to go back down. Half Dome is named for the way it looks. Those who reach the summit can crawl to the edge and stare straight down to the valley nearly a mile below. I would have tried to capture that image, but either my phone or myself might have gone over the edge.



Our summit rest was short because we wanted to cover as much ground in daylight as possible. I quickly discerned that descending the Half Dome cables was almost twice as difficult as ascending them. I chose to go with my ass facing the valley floor. My girlfriend followed me in similar fashion. I thought I would warn her of cracks and other rock oddities before she reached them, but I quickly found that I needed to handle myself.

My shoes were not fit for the descent. Instead of firmly placing my toes into the rock, my shoes helplessly slid down Half Dome while my knuckles whitened with importance. My girlfriend saw this but maintained her composure for me. I rested on the two-by-fours that connected each pair of poles between each shoe slide. I prayed a little.

"Try leaning back a little and using your arms more," she suggested. Leaning back did not sound like a healthy choice, but I trusted her. I stood more perpendicular to the rock instead of leaning into it and pulled hard on the cables. My shoes stopped sliding. My fear of heights might be talking, but she might have saved my life.



The hike down the stone steps was easy. We knew we needed to hurry to use the daylight. We leapfrogged back and forth with a man and his young son who had climbed the cables ahead of us. Darkness fell when we reached the top of Nevada Fall. We waited for the man and his son to get better numbers. Using two flashlights and two headlights, our group of six followed the beaten switchback path looking for bears, cliff edges and misplaced rocks in no particular order.

We made it back with nothing worse than sore knees and blisters. The man's wife was waiting for us with SUV headlights shining. We had almost agreed that one of us would ride in the family's SUV to our truck and return to pick up the other three when the man's wife interrupted us.

"The ranger and I saw a bear walk in my headlights across the road."

So in we piled, the man's son in his lap and my girlfriend in mine. A vehicle transfer, one missed turn and two hours later, we arrived back to our camp at 4 a.m.

We are proud we hiked Half Dome. We will never hike Half Dome again.

Note: Yosemite reports that "relatively few" people have fallen from the cables and died since 1919. Most deaths occur during or after inclement weather when the rock face is wet. Californian Hayley LaFlamme fell from the cables and died on the day I started writing this post, Aug. 1, 2011, less than one week after my own Half Dome hike. Four have died on the Half Dome rock climb since 2006.

Davis should have stayed

Fact
 
UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp dismissed head football coach Butch Davis last week a mere nine days before the first day of practice. Athletic Director Dick Baddour stepped down a day later, ending a long career that would have reached retirement next summer. Hours later they announced that former UNC defensive coordinator Everett Withers would be the interim head coach for the 2011 season.

The Davis dismissal surprised almost everyone since Thorp emphasized his support of Davis last fall after news of improper benefits, academic fraud and a relationship between assistant coach John Blake and NFL agent Gary Wichard surfaced. The academic fraud involved a tutor who was under the employ of both UNC and the Davis family. Thorp explained that Davis knew nothing of any of the infractions. Both men pledged to improve the situation.

Thorp said that "what started as a purely athletic issue [had] begun to chip away at this University's reputation." Besides this, he claimed the scandal had no new developments. He also said he still believed that Davis was not involved with the infractions.

Really two significant developments occurred in the last 45 days. The NCAA released its notice of allegations, which condensed the aforementioned infractions into nine major violations. Davis did not appear in any of them. The notice did not provide any new information, but it did put everything together into one document. It was an exclamation point. The NCAA will deliver sanctions in October after UNC formally responds.

The second development was Michael McAdoo's failed lawsuit, which sought to restore his eligibility after the NCAA dismissed him from college athletics for what appeared to be help with citations in a paper. McAdoo released the paper to the public as part of the lawsuit, and a couple N.C. State fans discovered that McAdoo plagiarized his paper from the Web and another source. And this happened after high-ranking UNC officials defended McAdoo's paper as his own work. The scandal had reached beyond the athletic department to tarnish the honor system, the compliance office and others responsible for protecting the University's academic integrity.

Opinion

Public reaction to the dismissal was varied and strong. Columnists both praised and criticized the decision. Everyone agreed that Thorp's timing was awful, but some said better late than never. WRAL released Thorp's e-mail records, which showed he received support from the faculty and varied reactions from alumni. Some called for Thorp's resignation.

Thorp claimed to reach the decision on his own in recent weeks, but evidence exists to suggest otherwise. The UNC Board of Trustees played an unclear role in the decision. The BOT welcomed two new members and changed its chairman on the day Thorp dismissed Davis. Thorp met with the Board of Trustees behind closed doors before the dismissal.

This change in membership was the only reason I could see for the timing of the decision. Perhaps Thorp wanted Davis out last fall but could not remove him because the old Board would not consent. Perhaps Thorp wanted Davis to stay but could not keep him after the new Board told him he had to go. The Board and Thorp might have an agreement of forced unanimity through Thorp's lips. Thorp did not explain this if either of these theories is correct. Maybe Thorp was in charge all along.

Writers will try to show that fans hate the dismissal and alumni love it. I disagree with the latter. I do hold the academic integrity of UNC in the highest regard, and that is why the McAdoo situation was devastating to me. University officials defended a phony paper for the world to see; it was the only situation of its kind since I came to Carolina in 2003. I know McAdoo stole someone else's work and other football players cheated. This upset me too, but students cheat at every institute of higher education. The best universities have an honor system in place to handle these instances. UNC has one that needs improvement. I give credit to Thorp for recognizing this. I also recognize that educators, including myself, cannot catch every instance of cheating. But they ought to try if the case is nationally prominent and time is relatively unlimited.

This major misstep was not primarily the fault of Davis. I doubt Davis even had access to the paper. You can blame Davis only if you think he alone should have better led his players in matters off the football field. You might say he alone should have taught them about honesty and dignity. But as Everett Withers explained in his press conference, it takes a village to raise a child. And it takes a lot more to raise 100 of them. A head football coach cannot give off- and on-field direction to each player. A head football coach has to surround himself and his players with people who can collectively accomplish such a task.

Yes, Davis hired John Blake, a man who knowingly violated NCAA rules. Blake was also known as a player's coach, a man who educated young men while teaching them the game. Nobody thinks about him in this light any more because of what happened. He was perhaps a good man who did not follow the rules. He needed to go.

But Thorp said Davis did not violate any rules. His leadership was a mutually acknowledged work in progress at the end of last season. Firing him Wednesday was not only unfair to the football team; it was unfair to Davis. Whether he deserved another shot last fall is still debatable, but Thorp gave it to him and then took it away this week without evident explanation.

Expressing my opinion on this issue is not my obligation. I am an alumnus first and a fan second. My job is to support the University with my presence and money, and I will continue to do exactly that. Withers handled his press conference like he is ready for the job. I will buy an Everett Withers T-shirt if the bookstore has one to sell.

Let's not forget that September will bring football back to Chapel Hill, and football is fun. Whether you loved or hated Davis, Baddour and Thorp through the scandal's drama, you no doubt had those feelings because you loved UNC.

Get 'em, Everett. Go Heels. Win them all.

McAdoo about something

Former Carolina football player Michael McAdoo lost his reinstatement-seeking lawsuit last week after the NCAA ruled him permanently ineligible last fall for receiving improper academic assistance and benefits.

That was the lead in most North Carolina papers, but the disturbing part came in the middle paragraphs and moved up to the lead a few days later. The News and Observer nailed it with a Sunday headline: UNC honor court failed to find McAdoo's obvious plagiarism.

I thought the same thing when I read that McAdoo's paper, which the Honor Court found problematic last fall only because of a tutor's help with citations, was actually splattered with undetected plagiarism. And who discovered this? No, it was not the University nor its Honor Court, both of which had access to the paper for almost a year. McAdoo's lawyer published the offending paper in his lawsuit, and a few N.C. State fans spent the two minutes it took to understand the real scam of the paper. State fans figured it out.

The Charlotte Observer reported that free online plagiarism detectors showed McAdoo lifted 39 percent of the paper from uncredited online sources. Further, unattributed quotes from a nearly century-old book appeared throughout. I do not know McAdoo personally, but I know a few things about him. He thought he would get away with cheating. He sort of did. Then he and his lawyer published the undiscovered evidence of his plagiarism for the entire world to see. You draw your own conclusion about Michael McAdoo given these facts while I dispense my thoughts on the honor system.

I never had any direct experience with the honor system while I was a UNC undergraduate, but I was naturally curious about how it prided itself on peer judgment. I knew a couple good people, both Morehead scholars, who sat for the Court. One of them explained that cases were confidential, but I knew most of them ended with guilty verdicts. It sounded legitimate. I still wondered how high-achieving undergraduates could find the time and training to prosecute, defend and judge these numerous cases. Were they really capable and dedicated to such a significant task?

The McAdoo case might pull the curtain open to answer this and other questions. The University stated that the Honor Court does not use anti-plagiarism software, a duty reserved for professors and teaching assistants. These faculty members refer cases and evidence to the Honor Court and wash their hands. The process leaves a rickety bridge between investigation and prosecution. In fact, the Honor Court "rarely" investigates at all. The Honor Court simply presents the faculty's evidence.

The aforementioned circumstance is not specific to McAdoo's case nor the cases of other student athletes. It is true for all cases. The Observer did report one problem specific to student athletes. A faculty member wrote on a survey that the athletic department had intervened to keep a student-athlete's case out of the Honor Court. I have no words.

As an educator and proud alumnus, I take these issues to heart. A couple years ago a student cheated on one of my tests and immediately admitted that he cheated. He understood he would get a zero on the test and I would call his parents within minutes. Later that semester he appeared to cheat again, but I noticed only because I looked at his test more carefully than the others. He was displeased with me when I mentioned this to him, but colleagues defended my practice as "prudent." I agreed with them.

This nearly brings me to my big question. First, consider these facts. The Honor Court found McAdoo's paper slightly problematic last fall and dismissed him from the team for one season. UNC launched an internal athletic investigation, the most significant in its 200 years, that lasted for nine months and attracted more sustained media attention than actual football games. Most notably, UNC defended McAdoo after his dismissal by appealing the NCAA's decision. And through all of this, nobody bothered to use this thing called the World Wide Web to check the rest of the paper? Not the chancellor, the athletic director, the compliance office, the academic support staff, the Honor Court, the professor, a teaching assistant?

Nobody can fault any one person, but everyone can fault the system. I am beginning to think that we will never know most of what we want to know about the UNC football scandal.

Cheers

Tonight I came home from Linda's, my favorite bar in the world, and looked for something on Netflix to watch as I fell asleep. I found the pilot episodes of Cheers, a show I knew I ought to respect but had never paid enough attention to. Sam's rotating women, particularly Kirstie Alley, scattered my interest away from the television in my preteen years.

The opening chords of the theme song sounded better tonight than before. It might have been the beers. It might have been that my long love affair with Linda's only recently became a two-way street, a place where some of the staff knew my name as the song describes. The few who did not knew to pay attention when I addressed them by name. I go in and out of the place with a degree of informal familiarity.

It's become important these days. Life and ambition have strewn some friends up and down the coast. I already wrote about how Linda's was a good place to say good bye because it was a good place to say hello. Blah, blah, blah. What I did not write and probably failed to understand was that Linda's personifies itself as another friend who might not leave. And no, it's not about the beer, the televisions nor the proximity to campus although all those things are very nice. To be honest, I do not know what it is about. I was thankful that Cheers gave me some hints.

The second episode illustrated the first hint when a customer walked in to talk to the supposedly late Gus, a previous owner of the bar. The bartender Coach tried his best to fill Gus's absence.

Man: Get me Gus! I came all the way from Seattle just to talk to him. Gus is the man. You got troubles, you take them to Gus and he straightens you up just like that. I gotta be back in Seattle Thursday night. What am I gonna do?

Coach: Take it easy, will ya? Listen, I managed in the minors. I coached in the majors. I've been a bartender for five years. I've had my share of people with problems. Why don't you give me a try?

The flustered man explained that his son brought home a black, male fiance from school. Dim Coach was at a loss to help, so the man talked himself to the obvious solution and gave Coach all the credit. Of course these social therapy sessions were overblown in the show because the show was a show. Not even Linda's bartenders can create such a niche, but sometimes they try.

I suppose high school teachers like myself try to do the same thing. They should listen, think, advise and teach each child every day. The trouble is that they serve 20 at a time instead of one. Cheers was never too busy for this thoughtful process. Of course I have only seen the first few episodes. Maybe the Red Sox go deep in the playoffs in a later season and bring hordes of customers to Sam's counter. The Sox are in the playoffs every day at my workplace.

My adolescent clients have little tendency to tell me their problems, and it disappoints me to say I am glad they don't. Ninety percent of the girls who cry in my classroom do so for the missteps of a boy. I can't do anything with that. I doubt I even notice when a boy is upset. Cheers and my work experience suggest that emotional maturity occurs sometime after high school but before the legal drinking age. Phew.

This might be oversimplified since each high school hires counselors to do the dirty work. Teachers teach content so that students can advance their learning and, seemingly more importantly, pass state tests. This separation of duties is necessary because of the challenging clientele.

A bar does not have to teach anything nor counsel anyone. All a bar has to do to survive is be a profitable business. I know bars that profit on things besides the personal touch of good bartenders, but they are not the ones I like. I wonder if scantly watching Cheers as a child had something to do with this preference.

Something tells me I would be good at owning a bar. Years ago I thought I would be a great teacher, but that prophecy has been slow to develop. It is not yet truth. As ever, who I think I am taunts who I am with room to grow.

Making your way in the world today
takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries
sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?