Half Dome and hiking to where only Angel's land

Last night, I dreamed I was hiking up Half Dome.

For those not familiar, Half Dome is one of the more notable landmarks in Yosemite National Park in California.  It gets it name because it literally looks like a giant rock dome that has been cut in half  Here is one image:

In the summer before I moved out east for graduate school, I packed all my belongings in my jeep, and hit many of the national parks out west.  Yosemite was my favorite, and I spent many days in the backcountry hiking around, not seeing another human being for days at a time.  It was a lot of fun.  As part of that visit, when I hiked back into civilization I stopped at Half Dome so I could hike to the top.  

Big wall climbers have multiple routes up the sheer face of Half Dome, but hikers have an option to 'hike' up the side of it by ascending steel cables and lumber footing supports that have been bolted into the rock.  Here is a picture showing this:

It's pretty fun and fairly popular.  It can also get pretty crowded on the cables, and I hate crowds, so when I did it, I was one of the first people up that day and got down before the crowds showed up. I think now you have to get a permit to climb it, but back when I did it, as long as you could make to the cables from the valley below (which was no small hike for those trying to do it all in one day), you were good to go.

Anyway, so in my dream I was going to hike Half Dome, but dream Half Dome was very different than the real thing - in fact it was Half Dome in name only, meaning the only reason I thought it was that is because others and myself referred to it by that name.

In the dream, I had been hiking around for some time, and I can't remember all of the details, but I had run out of both food and water, and it felt like it was getting 'late'.  I had been wandering for awhile.  At that moment, I looked up at 'Half Dome', and decided that now was the time to climb it.  I took stock of the fact that I had no supplies, but still determined that now was the time.  It was probably going to get ugly, and I was going to be famished, but nothing could be done about that now.

So, I headed up the mountain.

I arrived at what seemed like a staging area, and I ran into some people I knew.  There was a group of people there, in fact, and I recognized several of them.  They were also getting ready to head to the top of Half Dome, but they all seemed in much better condition than I was.  By the time I had arrived at this staging area, the lack of food and water was really starting to show, and I was dragging a bit.  I was actually more worried about sleep at this point, as in I wasn't going to get any because I don't sleep well if I am hungry, and I was going to be hungry for awhile.

A few people asked whether they thought I was really up for it, and were concerned about my state.  I couldn't see myself, but others remarked that I didn't look good.  One person commented on my eyes, and said that they looked very red.

I was still determined to go.  We took something like a bus or transport to an area where the 'hike' was going to start.  At this point, I don't remember much, other than the hike turned out to be more like the Angel's Landing hike in Zion National Park.  Angel's Landing got its name from some remarks by  a Methodist minister who, when he saw it, said "only an angel could land on it".  The Park Service later added a series of chains bolted along the ridge line that hikers follow today to reach Angel's Landing (I am using stock imagery here, because I don't have my own pictures handy):

I have done the Angel's Landing hike a few times (I used to live in Las Vegas for a few years, and it wasn't too far of a drive to Zion), so that was my reference point in the dream.  It just felt similar to that hike,  complete with some pretty narrow sections to navigate with steep drop-offs on either side.

As to whether I made it or not, I don't know, as I either woke up before reaching, or I woke up and forgot.

Upon waking, though, this thought of "Half Dome" had me instantly thinking of Eressea.  The connection (right or wrong) was pretty quick for two simple reasons:  It was something high in the air, and it was described as being "half" - as in, the name was important.

Eressea, as touched on in Doug's writings, was apparently split in half in the events and cataclysms surrounding Pharazon and the Numenoreans' assault on Eressea and Valinor, with one half lifted high into the sky.

Interestingly, after I had thought through this a bit, and gone over a few story-items in my head, I went over to William Tychonievich's blog, where he posted about some strange poltergeist experiences.  This included things being severed, with each item described as being neatly split in two, or in some cases, as being split in half.  The things split in half included a brass door knob (???) and steel supports holding up a fan which then fell from the ceiling.

This obviously took me back to my dream about "Half" Dome, Eressea, and even recent thoughts about Ungoliant and her potential dark influence and power over that land, or at least part of it.

"Dom" (the closest thing to how you would say "Dome" in Elvish, but there is also "Dome", but you would pronounce the 'e')) of course turns out to be an Elvish word, and it is relevant.  "Dom" means "Dark", or "Night, Twilight, Gloom".  This further reinforces to me that there might be something to this narrative going on in my head of a darkness on Eressea, and Ungoliant's hand in it, since she is the Queen of Darkness and Gloom.

On a lighter note, it's funny but I was just reminded of something from my childhood.  We had a large apple tree, and two pear trees in our backyard.  One day, when our whole family was in the back picking pears, I was standing on a ladder when a pear from above me fell and hit my head.  When it hit my head, it split perfectly in two right down the middle, like someone had sliced it with a knife, which we all thought was pretty incredible.