Yosemite (Part 2): Clouds Rest – A lesson in fear and preparation
It’s about 3:30 AM, and I am two and a half miles into a nighttime hike to the summit of Clouds Rest – one of the highest accessible hiking destinations in Yosemite – when my iPhone screen completely froze. And I am all alone. My iPhone was my map for this hike in the dark. It kept me on the path. Already, I had deviated from it briefly, only to see on the AllTrails app that I needed to walk back 30 paces to get on course. The app got me back to the right path – when it was working. In this moment, I paused and cracked a smile. This wasn’t the first time this happened to my phone – although it rarely does. The last time was about six months ago, and as I had always done, I googled how to force restart an iPhone. It’s hard to remember – quickly press the volume up, then the volume down, and then a long press of the side button. But as I prepared for my Yosemite trip and the prospect of hiking alone through the night in darkness, I knew I needed to memorize the force restart – just in case it happened during the trip when there was no cell reception or internet. And now it did! I only slightly cracked a smile because I not only needed my phone to restart, but I needed AllTrails to start back up and resume tracking my hike. If it didn’t, I’d have to abandon the hike. Not only would I certainly miss my goal of reaching the summit for sunrise, but I could not safely navigate the rest of the trail. But after the restart, everything worked! The app was back up and running, and I was on track for the summit at sunrise . . .
Yosemite (Part 1) – My hopes and dreams
I wrote the blog below while headed to Yosemite two weeks ago. Although I had hoped to put in on this site while in Yosemite, I didn’t have the time. What you will read has not been substantively edited or changed since arriving there. I want you to read it exactly as I saw the trip before I experienced it. This is part 1 in a series about how this trip has played a role in my journey of self-discovery . . .
By the time this post drops, I’ll be in Yosemite. But right now, I am on the way there as I sit on my cross-country flight to California. So, what is there to write about for a trip that has not yet happened? Just my hopes and dreams . . .
Dream Big Wall
Truth be told, there’s nothing more that I like blogging about than my climbing journey. Yet, as I find myself reflecting on the past year, I realize this is only my third climbing post in 2025. Since June, most of my energy – and the lessons I’ve learned in fitness – revolved around training for the NY Marathon. That’s not to say climbing took a back seat on my journey – only that it did in this year’s content. In fact, as I look back on my climbing year, I realized that I never even shared my highlight of the year – climbing in Moab.
A year ago, I wrote my year-end update on climbing along with my aspirations for 2025. It took looking back on that post to remind me that I was only just a beginner in 2024. In fact, when I launched Legally Fit in May of last year, I had only just recently climbed outdoors at The Gunks for my first time (with only one other experience before that on an Alaskan cruise in 2023). I had contemplated making a mountain part of the logo for Legally Fit before launching it last May, but ultimately, I thought it might be too presumptuous to include something that was so new in my life. I knew I loved the brief taste of it that I had, but was it possible that I would really turn my hobbies upside down to make this new adventure as big a part of my life as I dreamed it would become?
If each year of my climbing journey is its own title, 2023 would be Trying Something New, and 2024 would be The Journey Begins. For 2025, as I’ll explain below, the title is Dream Big Wall.