Half Dome is Epic

Sometime in late winter, Andrew sent out an email gauging interest in a big wall climb out in Yosemite this summer. Ever since then, it had always been on my mind. I spent many sessions at Lindseth (the Cornell climbing wall) practicing aid climbing and prepping for this part of our NW road trip. Finally as we enter Yosemite valley, staring at the giant faces of granite, and trying not to run over the oodles of tourists, the time is coming near. I was very much excited, yet nervous and worried about my sunburned hands (damn you doxycycline...) and lack of climbing over the past month.

Andrew James and I (left to right) with Half Dome way in the distance

Andrew and James had a week in the valley and we decided that we would take advantage of the best weather window. Turns out that on Saturday we all met up at the ranger station, and decided to get our permits and go for it the next day. This led to a flurry of getting the last bits of food and then finalizing our plan and sorting our gear (which was no small feat)

Taking up a lot of space to sort everything.

The next morning we started packing up the last of the gear, while I drove Nico to her trailhead. Her plan was to do a 4 day solo backpacking trip and meet us on top of Half Dome on day 3, and then we all hike out together. Crazy how the timing worked out that this day (June 15) also happened to be our one year anniversary. Fortunately we had already talked about this possibility and were okay with it... With a slightly teary "Happy anniversary, I'll see you in 4 days", I head back to the trailhead to get started to the base of the climb with Andrew and James.

One year anniversary

Day 1:

We hiked to what is known as the Death Slabs. This is a steep hike up the talus pile at the bottom of Half Dome, and the most direct route to the base of the climb.  It gains 3000' of elevation, and varies from hiking on a trail to needing to harness up and ascend some fixed ropes that you hope don't break on you as they have been there for who knows how long.

James finding the trail on the Death Slabs

We got to the wall for a late lunch and admired it for a little while. It is immense. I wish that photos could do it justice.  We still had work to do, which was pack up the haul bag (food, water, sleeping gear) and start up the first three pitches. Once up there, we had just enough rope to reach back down to the ground, so that we could come down for the night and then get a jumpstart on the morning by just climbing the 350' of rope.  Up until this point we were thinking we were going to get lucky in that no one else had come to the base of the climb today. Its no fun to have another group on your heels, and letting a group pass can take a long time and also increases the chance of rock fall above you. There was a group of two who showed up right before we went to sleep who were planning on doing the climb in a day... so we let them just start before us, although this did mean leaving the ground almost an hour later than planned.

Day 2 - the long day

It was easy to get up to the top of pitch 3 with the fixed ropes.  After that, it was some interesting climbing, very different from what we are used to on the east coast. We were moving a little bit slow, and I was surprised when it was well past lunchtime at the top of pitch 8 and we had barely eaten or drank anything at all yet.  And we still had 9 pitches to go for the day… I started preparing myself for a long day, but did not make much of a deal about it.  It was also around then that I realized that there is no turning around. We have to go up. The route had traversed quite a bit and at this point it would probably take more time to go down. It is not like a climb at the Gunks, where basically anywhere you can, at the worst, build an anchor, leave a couple pieces of gear and be on the ground soon. Realizing that we were moving slowly and not having a way out, and really having no control over that was the mental crux of the climb for me.

Andrew and I sorting gear at the Pitch 6 belay

So at the top of pitch 8 we pulled our sandwiches out of the haul bag and ate them when we had a chance, and continued on. Pitch 10 was a fun one, being the Robbins Traverse. I led it, and climbed up the bolt ladder until a point where I had to be lowered down and then run back and forth across the wall until I was able to grab onto something and pull myself over to the next set of anchors.  So glad to have had the training at Lindseth, cause we knew exactly what to do when we came to this.

Trying to grab something while swinging on the Robbins Traverse

James led off the next pitch, and we continued on our way. This was another big traverse. I was the one being lowered out on the haul line, and Andrew was going to clean. This was the first big lower out with one of us on the rope… We had a line to control the lower out, but unfortunately it was only 30’ long. By the end of the rope, I was just about under the anchor, but the haul bag had a little ways to go. Andrew looks at me, and shows me that he is about to have to let go. As he does, I move right under the anchor, but the 70lb haul bag swings past and takes me for quite a ride. Only my arm scrapes the wall in a big poof of feathers, as my puffy coat rips open. Fortunately it was just a minor scrape, and so I jug up and prepare to lead the next pitch. Needless to say, this put me a little bit more on edge…

Feathers were following us up the rest of the climb...

When I got to the top of the next pitch, I noticed the sun starting to get low in the sky. After this pitch, James led pitch 13&14 (as one) which were the main chimney pitches.  At the top of 14 was the squeeze chimney. Huge props to James for having the balls to do this. The chimney gets tighter as you go up and as you go in deeper, so there is no gear and the rock tries to spit you back out. This is nothing like what we’ve climbed before. At one point Andrew and I were sure that he was at the anchor because he stopped moving up. Then a few minutes later the rope moves a couple inches… then extremely slowly the rope inched up over the next 30 minutes or so.  Also it got darker and darker until we could see the stars, but we could not even see a headlamp up there!  Until finally we heard a scream of relief as James popped out of the top of the chimney.  It was totally dark by the time that Andrew started jugging the haul line. I cleaned this pitch, and when I got to the squeeze chimney, I understood. First I had to take off my backpack and clip it to my harness, letting it drag below me. Then as I ascended the rope, it took me deeper and deeper into the chimney where James got in a single piece of protection. Although at this point I was still 5’ away from it and could not even turn my head because it was so tight.  At one point, the rock pulled my headlamp off my helmet, and fortunately it landed on my shoulder. Extremely slowly and carefully I managed to reach over my head with my other arm and retrieve it.  I would have totally lost it without light in there.  I also realized that since I was climbing the rope, there would be no safe way to get that gear back, because as soon as I took it out I would fall out of the chimney.  Fortunately a bit of the haul line was accessible, and so I attached the backpack to it for them to haul up, and then transferred onto the haul line to go clean the piece and finish out the pitch. I have never been so scared on rope before, and so I cannot even imagine what it was like for James leading it.  Up until this point I was thinking that we would get to our bivy by around midnight…

Andrew starting to jug the chimneys in the dark

I slept here...

Once I got up, I had to put that all behind me, change my shoes, rack up (all standing on this tiny ledge…), scarf down a cliff bar, and start leading the next pitch. It was a 5.9, and probably would have been some sweet climbing (open chimney with a fist sized crack), but I was a bit scared and it was dark, so I aided most of it. This was pitch 15, so two more to go. Leading pitch 17 was similar, although now it was cold and we were getting pretty tired (about 3:30am). I had to traverse a bit and then find the correct set of cracks that would get us to Big Sandy. I felt so alone up there, not knowing that I was definitely on route, and both James and Andrew had their headlamps off at the belay (and were probably mostly asleep…). Interesting though that you have no idea that you are 2000’ up on a wall since it is dark and all I know is the small area that my headlamp illuminates right in front of me. With some hauling struggles, all three of us and the bag were finally on our ledge at 5am… as I noticed the northern sky just beginning to get lighter and we also saw some headlamps at the base of the climb. Gosh I hope that they do not pass us before we get to the top… Up until that point I was hoping to get some good sleep on Big Sandy, but seeing the sky start to lighten really made it hit home just how late it was. We were so tired, James just jumped into his bag with his shoes on, gear on his harness, on a heap of rope. I collapsed right next to him on the rock, and Andrew actually laid out the lead rope all nice to have something vaguely comfortable to lie on.

Still smiling after 24 hours of climbing and 2 hours of sleep

Jugging up the second Zig Zag, with
Big Sandy below

Day 3 – top out.

At 7am, we all started to stir, but refused to get out of our bags until closer to 8.  Two hours of sleep, and 6 tough pitches to get to the top.  We resorted the haul bag, had dinner (breakfast?) and got ready for the zigzags. This is an area of the climb that has to be aided (unless you are a crazy strong climber). It was surprisingly cold (the wind never stopped) as I racked up the cold metal and started up the first one. After about 20’ I started to get the screaming barfies, and waited for a few minutes banging my head against the wall while the blood rushed back into my fingers. Fortunately after that I felt way better. We averaged a little better than two hours a pitch through the zigzags to the Thank God Ledge.

The Thank God Ledge is a necessary traverse that starts off on about an 18” ledge, but then narrows to about 9” as the wall leans out towards you. I followed this walking upright, until the narrowest point where I had trouble getting a cam out, and then things got a little scary. Like most people who do this, I ended up groveling across it on my belly with one leg down and the other heel hooking to help keep me up. It is super exposed as you can see right down to the ground. Even though it was a bit scary, it was super cool and a lot of fun to go across.

Me getting a better look at the exposure while walking the Thank God Ledge

From there it was another aid tension traverse, and then one last easy pitch to the top! Damn it felt so good to get up on solid ground and take off my harness.  It was just about sunset (totally missed out on meeting Nico up there) and the only other people up there were two guys drinking rum and two base jumpers.  I had just topped out, looked over to my side and these two guys in wing suits jump off the top not 15’ from where I was. Andrew, James and the rum drinkers were oohing and ahhing as they flew down in one minute what took us three days to climb up.

Andrew jugging the last pitch, while I clean the anchor and prepare to follow

It was a sweet and beautiful sunset that I got to enjoy for just a couple minutes before Andrew and I went to haul the bag up the last pitch and gather our gear. James hiked down to the bottom of the climb to retrieve the gear and food that we left behind. Since I had a small pack, I took all the gear for the walk down… which tunred out to be really heavy.  The way off Half Dome is the cable route. Which for something in a national park, is actually very steep and scary.  Especially in the dark, and with a 60ish lb pack. I actually had to turn around and walk backwards, and struggle to keep my eyes open. We were supposed to meet up with Nico and hike to the Little Yosemite campground, but we were way too exhausted to hike more than two minutes from the base of Half Dome. We did not have great communication with Nico, and so when on the way down the cables I noticed a light shining up at us from where the campground was, I paid attention.  It blinked a couple times, I blinked mine a couple times. Nico knows we made it…

Late night meal

Finally at about 11pm we sat down with a huge amount of food and just ravenously dug in… and then promptly passed out.

Day 4 – hike out

We started down the trail, and fortunately found Nico hiking up the trail coming to get us with extra food and water. First she punched me, then she hugged me, just happy that we were safe.  We were so exhausted at this point, so we took out time hiking the 8 miles back to the car, via some really nice waterfalls and some crazy large crowds down towards the bottom.

Waterfalls on the walk out.

33 hours of climbing, with 2 hours of sleep…

Needless to say, I was exhausted and useless for a couple days afterwards to recover.

Overall this was most definitely type 2 fun. It was a really tough experience, but I am really glad for the chance to push my limits, which is something that I extremely rarely get a chance to do.  To be scared, then have to man up and lead the next pitch in the dark, and not have the option to back off and just leave, was actually really awesome in a demented sort of way.

I also really appreciated how Andrew, James and I worked as a group. In such a trying experience we were all laid back, yet still able to make decisions and move on. We were amazingly courteous and respectful to each other from the start, and continued that the whole time, which definitely made this a much more enjoyable experience.  I am so happy to have climbed half dome, and I would say I would wait at least a year before doing something like this again J.

We made it!!!

But since we were in Yosemite, we got up early the following morning to get a spot at the famous camp 4, and then even climbed a few pitches (with naps and river baths).

From Yosemite, we braved more crowds for a quick stop in San Francisco to meet up with my cousin, then a brief trip to the Redwoods National Park, and then on to Oregon!

Here are the rest of my pictures in Picasa.