Matthew Stewart started an adventure climbing Half Dome in Yosemite in 2023 just like many fit 28-year-olds would: Prepared, optimistic, excited, and aware. He never expected to have to be airlifted off Half Dome for a tumor he had no idea he was harboring. A year later, he was back on Half Dome to do that climb. Here, in his own words, is how he made it through:

I’M AN EAST Coaster who started taking annual trips out west to hike and backpack with my friend Tim in 2020. In June 2023, when I was 28, we decided to go to Yosemite and added our friend Sam, who was in paramedic school with Tim. We didn’t win the lottery for permits to hike Half Dome, so spent three days on the southern rim of Yosemite Valley on backcountry backpacking permits. At the end of that time, we checked in with the ranger station and found out there was a last-minute cancellation, and scored Half Dome permits.

We were a little beat up and tired, but I felt amazing—I was hiking way ahead of my buddies. We got to Little Yosemite Campground to stay the night so we could hit it early the next day into Half Dome.

But when I woke up, I was extremely dizzy, and when I tried to go to the bathroom, I could barely stand up. This wasn’t totally new for me—a few months before the trip, I started getting headaches, sometimes along with dizziness and nausea. I thought maybe I had Lyme disease so I went to my doctor and we scheduled a CAT scan for right after my trip.

But this felt different. I laid back in the tent and things progressively got worse. It went from dizziness to the worst migraine of my life. My friends were checking my vitals and giving me some medication.

Then, I started throwing up and I couldn’t move my left arm or leg, and I was going in and out of consciousness. They did a stroke test called the Cincinnati test a few times, and at one point, I couldn’t hold up my left arm at all. For a brief period, I even lost all vision, but I could still hear and talk to them. They had to call in a helicopter. Thankfully, we were on the only route along our path that had an area where a helicopter could get in.

When I woke up in the ICU, I felt fine, but the following morning, the surgeon told me, “Mr. Stewart, we found a mass in the back of your brain. We believe it’s cancerous and we want to operate tomorrow.”

I couldn’t believe it because I was young, I was exercising, and eating well. I was in some of the best shape I’ve ever been in. The last place I wanted to be was on the other side of the country without my friends and family, but there were concerns that the pressure of flying would affect the tumor. (Being at 6000-feet or more of elevation in Yosemite could have been why the symptoms were worse than when I was home at sea level.)

For that kind of surgery, I really wanted to go to Johns Hopkins—they’re one of the top hospitals when it comes to any neurological treatment and it’s in Baltimore, a couple hours away from where I live. He and a doctor at Hopkins reviewed my file and cleared me to fly.

I was still in shock, but trying to take it one thing at a time. Many cancers are treatable these days, I told myself. Doctors at Johns Hopkins believed I had glioblastoma, which is a late-stage cancerous tumor, and on average, you have three to five years to live. He said that I could have surgery to remove the tumors, but they’d come back. It was possible it could be a lower grade, but they were pretty confident in the diagnosis. That’s when I realized this was really bad.

We scheduled the surgery for two weeks later. The plan was to remove as much of the tumor as possible and maybe insert a chemotherapy wafer into the cavity where the tumor was.

It was a really dark time. At that point, all the dreams you have, all the things you want to do, it’s like, “Hey, I don’t have much time to do all that.” The chemo and radiation beats you up pretty bad. But I’m a Christian and I had this unexplainable peace. I thought, “let’s just get the surgery over with, go from there, and see what needs to be done.” I needed to not get hung up on the what ifs or the future.

On July 5th 2023, I went in for a four-hour surgery that turned into a six hours. When I came out of anesthesia, I remember the doctors saying something like, “we didn’t think we were going to be able to, but we got the entire tumor out.” They didn’t need to insert a chemotherapy wafer, either. The tumor was in the occipital lobe, so I had extremely blurry vision and some blindness at first, but I was just so joyful to hear the good news. I knew there was still a possibility for it to be cancerous, but it wasn’t late-stage glioblastoma.

A week and a half later, the surgeon called me to say, “Hey man, I don’t get to tell people this that often, but you do not need any further treatment as of right now.” At that point, they didn’t know exactly what it was, but they suspected it was a low-grade cancer.

More than a month later, I was told it was a rare non-cancerous childhood tumor that I’ve had maybe since I was in middle school. It was slow growing and wasn’t really affecting anything until recently, and until I was in that high elevation under pressure.

They did a gross removal, which is the best option for lowering your chances of having the tumor come back, and I get MRIs regularly to monitor things. If it does come back, two medications just got approved for stunting the growth of this type of tumor and killing it off.

Recovery was rough and took a while. I was struggling to do everyday tasks like read, use a phone, or make food, and, at first, just looking out the window as the passenger in a car was exhausting since my eyes had to scan more to compensate for the blind spot. One of the hardest parts was not being able to drive.

Two weeks after surgery, I could start slowly exercising again. I incorporated running and then biking and started lifting with high reps of light weights. As I got stronger, I was doing five to six days of strength training and about 15 miles of running a week. I also used hobbies like guitar to exercise my eyes.

Once I knew I was good and that I could continue on with my life, Tim, Sam, and I decided to go back to Yosemite. We won the lottery and got six permits for Half Dome so we invited three other friends.

The author (left) with friends Tim (center), and Sam (right), on their successful Half Dome climb.

In September 2024, a little more than a year after our first attempt, I headed to Yosemite again. It felt weird to be at the same campground I got flown out of. It was crazy to think back on how life was a year ago and how far I’d come. We were back—tumor-free and ready to conquer what we failed the first trip.

We got up early and made sure to have all the right gear including gloves with grip and clips. If you slip and you don’t have those clips, you are dying for sure. It’s a drop-off on either side and climbing it is an adrenaline rush. I’m not the biggest fan of heights, so every step of climbing Half Dome was pretty uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

We all made it up to the top. It was just so peaceful to relax up there, take it in, and to finally conquer what we missed the year before. On top of the mountain, I thought about all the blessings that have happened in the last year despite what all the doctors told me. Although my eyes have improved tremendously, I still maintain that blind spot and expect that to be permanent. Regardless, I have learned to cope with it and am back to doing pretty much all the things I used to do, including driving (with a license restricted to daylight hours). I met a woman who is now my fiance. I’m so thankful for where I am now, compared to a year ago.