Steve sums up the situation on at Yosemite’s Half Dome, interviewing hikers, national parks people and “Hike Half Dome” author Rick Deutsch. Steve covers the bases — is it safe, is it really a wilderness experience, etc. — and talks to a few hikers on the Half Dome Trail. Fortune smiles when a backpacker heading down the John Muir Trail says what I’m sure Steve might’ve said, if asked:

STEVE: The last hiker I met on my way back down was Francis Engler.

FRANCIS ENGLER: I’m heading up the John Muir Trail, and I’m going to hike to the other side of Yosemite and then decide how I’m feeling, and maybe make it to Red Meadow, up the Muir Trail.

STEVE: You going to give a shot at climbing Half Dome?

FRANCIS ENGLER: No. No, …I’d rather get back into the lakes back in the backcountry.

STEVE: Well, an awful lot of people are climbing Half Dome in a day. I’ve talked to dozens of them already. And for them, the idea of getting into the backcountry seems really extreme and something that they would never do.

FRANCIS ENGLER: That’s funny, because I think like trying to hike Half Dome, you know, seventeen miles in one day is kind of extreme. So I’d rather just take a — keep my pack with me and hike whatever I feel like hiking in a day, and sit down and fish afterwards, and read a book, I think that’s less extreme than running myself all over the park in a day.

I tend to agree: hiking seven or eight hours, setting up camp and kicking back — humans have always done this, it’s the most natural thing in the world. Using steel cables to clamber up a hillside to soak up a scenic view is a 20th century innovation, as inevitable as mass production and annoying pop-up ads.

I hope Rick’s book sells a million copies because, as he tells Steve, it’s a fierce trek that requires thoughtful preparation. People are going to come, and they need good advice, particularly in light of the crowds. You can’t see the crowds from Glacier Point or the valley, so they’re not defacing the dome all that much.

My main hesitation about hiking Half Dome is that I’m enthralled with the rock’s strange charisma: I have no clue why I can’t stop looking at it, nor do I want one. It’s one riddle I don’t want solved.

Mind you’d I’d probably feel different if the prospect of going up and down that rock face didn’t fill me with bowel-flushing terror.