Pavan Darvemula Travel Blog: 2006

Half Dome Yosemite

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My First solo 17 mile round trip hike. It was totally different to be just by yourself.You get to see two gorgeous falls enroute (Mist Falls and the Nevada Falls).
Half dome peak is about 8842 feet high and is very popular amongst rock climbers
The best part of the whole trip is the infamous Half Dome cables. The last part of the trail is too steep to climb without hand support and the park service graciously maintains the cables up the last quarter mile to the summit. I'm told this section never gets steeper than 45 degrees, but you can judge for yourself :-). But once you climb up its nothing short of heaven. You forget all the pain and enjoy the gorgoeus steep canyon on the other side of half dome. I even took a short nap at 9000 ft,dreaming of an angel to pick me up and take me down the half dome. But there were no angels in real world and I had to walk back all the way
I met a crazy german guy on my hike up and we talked about his previous hikes to the angel falls in venezuala and the sahara desert in Africa.
I also met a some what crazy local guy named Mike Morris on my way dowm. Got to know about some not so popular but very beautiful trails in Yosemite.He also promised to invite me on his Mt. Whitney Hike next summer (if he remembers me :-))
All in all it was a very exciting trip,started off at 5 AM from home and returned to my sweet bed by 11:00 PM

Arches National Park (Utah)

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This was one of the many more adventures to come with my best friend chinmay.

Arches NP is a very scenic natural formation of Arches made of sandstone in Utah. If you happen to go there check out the primitive trail near private arch. Primitive indeed without any signs / markers and only your compass and discretion to guide you.

It was a memorable trip for both of us. We also did some white water rafting in colarado river for the first and it was fun. Chins and me were on a small raft and after we completed the loop, we couldnt navigate the raft to the bank of the river. It was a funny sight with the raft owner running on the bank of the river trying to catch us before we complete another free loop. People cheering for us, raft guy running for us, and we were in the raft not knowing what to do :-

Kings Canyon

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Kings Canyon, well its also the gorgeous of all the canyons. This hike is a very memorable one, mainly because I got to set up my very own tent for the first time. It was also the first hike of many more hikes to come.
One of the places I always want to go back to any number of times

Grand Canyon (North Rim Hike)

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The ultimate of all hikes I ever did. A tiring 4 hour hike downwards and a 10 hr hike up the cayon. It was scrotching 110 F and we almost got lost without water while going down ( One of those scary moments of life).
I was with my friend chinmay on this hike. Hours of hiking without seeing a single soul enroute. I should hopefully get to hike the South rim, which is more populated and ofcourse scenic

Tandem Skydiving at Napa Valley

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The ultimate rush of adrenalin I ever had. It was a tandem skydive from a heihgt of 10,000 ft and I loved every feet of it.
We jumped over at Napa valley and it was a very scenic descent with the parachute. Best of all I even got to control the parachute for a while.
My tandem instructor was a crazy German sky diver. Can u imagine, we discussed about the popular german beers at about 4000ft just to lighten up the excitement :-)