Climbing Half dome in Yosemite I noticed an interesting example of stratification. Not in the geological sense. Yosemite has one type of granite rock that goes all the way up. There were definite lines drawn in the types of people that I met along the trail. In the town on the valley floor there are all types of people in the giftshops and being carted around in trailers on tours, they were predominantly over weight, elderly, or handicapped.
The first part of the trail up the mountain was past some waterfalls. The population that most used this trail was families with young children, and some retired folks who wanted to go for a short hike. After getting up past the falls there is a relatively flat area through some pines. The trail connects here to some back country campsites so the people on this section of trail are likely to be carrying larger packs. Several middleaged couples and a large highschool group were coming down this part of the trail.
As the trail continues up hill from there it is the twenty to thirty age bracket that dominates. Many of them couples in trendy sports wear, the unwritten rule is that women are not allowed to carry the day pack, although most of them appear in excellent shape and quite capable.
There were lots of people at the top, but the two that every one looked up to were the ones that had the 'biners hanging off there belts with a rope slung over the shoulder. They came up the hard way.
Pictures: First - At the top, along the steep edge there is a ledge hanging over thousands of feet of empty space. Second - The last 400 feet are lined with cables to aid climbers to the top, there are as many people waiting at the bottom of the cables as there are on top of the mountain. Third - There is a pile of hundreds of old gloves at the bottom of the cables, most of them are in pretty bad shape.
