Sure, sure.

by Alethea Butler-Nalin (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find USA

“Stand up to take a picture!” I refused. I preferred to stay plastered like a starfish maximizing my body’s surface area in contact with the rock. We were on a sparkling expanse of flat granite 5000 feet above Yosemite Valley under bright sun. The genesis of this trip came from my coxswain teammate from college rowing. Pint-sized and fiercely competitive, pound for pound she could better me at everything. I was perennial sidekick just happy to go along. Road trip to Yosemite? Sure, sure. First backpacking trip up Half Dome? Sure, sure. So up, up, up we went on youthful legs. Our brand new Leki trekking poles a trip requirement. Anointed by the spray of Vernal falls we graciously accepted the best wishes of the day hikers. “Isn’t this amazing!” Mountain girls. We stopped to take point and shoot pictures every 10 yards. At camp overnight, we joined a bonfire of other hikers and the camp ranger. There were talks of bears visiting nightly. Of course we had a bear canister, another trip requirement. We listened rapt to the park ranger tell stories of mountain rescues when the cables were down and people tried to ascend Half Dome in the rain. We nodded and murmured. Sure, sure. Mountain rescue, sure, sure. One topic I still wasn’t grasping was, what were these cables everyone kept talking about? Were they something you held onto over your head? “Cables” reminded me of cable cars in San Francisco which reminded me of childhood in moody fog eating Ghirardelli chocolate. Perhaps they resembled the velvet ropes that marked your journey into the movie theater. The next morning was our summit day. We chatted happily and strode along excited to get a look at what was to be an iconic ascent. As we got closer to Half Dome’s profile it became clear to me deep inside that this was going to be awful. I was quite sure I didn’t want to be one of the human specks moving slowly like a line of ants trailing up what I now saw were the cables. I saw wood slats anchored to the very steep sheer rock with the movie theater cordons sticking out at a right angle for hikers to cling to. No red velvet. Somehow my coxswain convinced me to continue. I donned my gloves (trip requirement) and took a deep breath, still with that deep knowing that a fear had found me. We started up. My mind did summersaults. A complete disconnect. My vision tunneled down to a 3-inch square that included a little granite, a little wooden plank, and a little bit of the corner of my buddy’s shoe. When the shoe moved out of the frame I stepped forward to get it back in frame. Shoe, step. Shoe, step. Sure, sure. At one point someone’s sunglasses fell off and skittered off into the void. What about did me in was the woman in black. Inconsolable and immobilized by fear she had stopped climbing a hundred feet or so up the cables. Her support person was trying to verbally reach her over her wails; their faces and bodies pressed close together. There was a huge bottleneck of hikers around this area and having to cling to the cables waiting for a chance to go around was not fun. I sent a silent apology to my mother who thought me something of a clairvoyant. I was certain I had guessed wrong in the choose your own adventure and made a decision that would lead directly to my death. I was vaguely aware of people passing me OUTSIDE the cables, but how this was possible brought me too close to the mental summersaults again and I drifted away. Somehow, we made it to the top and I melted to the ground in my starfish pose. Eventually, my friend did convince me to stand and the camera was handed off to a good Samaritan. In the picture, my thin lips grimace wanly as she holds my fist above us like a victorious fighter in the ring. If only we could stay up there forever. Sure, sure. Then we wouldn’t have to go back down.