He did it!!

Jeffrey, the reluctant hiker is home. He consented to an interview about his experience.

Mom: So Jeff? How was it?

Jeff: What an all encompassing question Mom. (yep, he really said that.)
It was painful....long...hot...mosquito filled... blister inducing...

Mom: So can we cut to the chase here? Was it miserable?

Jeff: Add dehydrating, it was dehydrating.

Mom: Jeff, did you want to go on the hike?

Jeff: Didn't you do a blog about this? No. I did not want to go. No. No. No.

Mom: What did you do to get ready for the hike?

Jeff: Well, I did go on three preliminary hikes. Other than that, I picked out food, whined, griped, complained.... (true that)

Mom: Jeff....of the food you picked out...how much did you eat?

Jeff: I ate all the fruit snacks and the beef jerky and raw top ramen noodles. I ate about half of three freeze dried meals. And a few rice krispie treats.

Mom: How many pounds of food did you bring back?

Jeff: About a hundred pounds. (that was one heavy pack)

Mom: Did you use your soap?

Jeff: Once on my feet. (good to know)
Oh Mom!! I caught three fish. First try I caught a trout! That was cool.

Mom: How many miles did you hike each day?



Jeff: The first day we hiked six, they told us five and it was six.
Day two we didn't hike, we got used to the altitude.
Wednesday we were supposed to hike ten, but we went eleven. The worst day of my entire life.
Thursday we hiked nine miles Buena Vista Lake. It was hard.
Friday there were two passes, one was 7 miles, one was 8. Of course we took the eight mile one.
Saturday we hiked 11 miles and climbed Half Dome.

Mom: How many mosquito bites?

Jeff: About 800. Actually, I think 60.

Mom: Of the bazillion dollars I spent...what was my best purchase?

Jeff: My buff. I see why they use them on Survivor.

Mom: Did you ever use your buff as a shirt?

Jeff: (laughing) no. But it did help keep mosquitoes off my neck.

Mom: Did you go swimming to get clean?

Jeff: Oh yeah. One time in a glacier lake. They neglected to tell us there was still ice floating in
the lake.

Mom: What was the best part of the hike?

Jeff: There was a couple actually. One was Saturday when we walked a mile through a waterfall mist and a cave. It was wet, cold and amazing. And then....seeing Bro. Toland's car to take us home. It was like an angel, coming to rescue us. To quote Scott M.: "it was painfully beautiful". The hike was hard, really, really hard.

Mom: What was the scariest part of the hike?

(to get up Half Dome, you have to hold onto cables and pull yourself up a sheer cliff. Photos from Scott Bledsoe)

Jeff: Going down the cables on Half Dome. And being completely out of water one day, it was miserable.

Mom: What was your feeling when you reached the top of Half Dome?

Jeff: I was happy and I was really proud of myself. I was dead tired but happy that I made it up there. And I knew we were almost done. It was hard to go up but really scary to go down.

(our boys going up the cliff)

(Jeff and our friend Marja who joined the guys with some others from our ward.)

Mom: Was it worth it?

Jeff: It's something that is so cool...I mastered Half Dome. I'm happy that I did it...but I'll never do it again.

Mom: Would you be like me and make your boys go on this hike?

Jeff: Well, it depends on how mean I want to be. Yeah...I'd make them go.

Score one for Mom.

For the record, on the way home they went out to eat. Jeff had chicken nuggets.

For those not from California...Half Dome (elevation 8,842 ft.) is in Yosemite National Park and was photographed extensively by Ansel Adams. It is a beautiful rugged park full of granite cliffs, wild animals, creeks and lakes. Half Dome is a piece of Granite rock that at some point probably had a glacier sheer it in half thus making its distinctive shape. The hike around the park is grueling yet amazingly beautiful.