My ascent of a bizarre yet wonderful climb on the most iconic mountain on the States. Half Dome……
After casting about in Camp 4 for a climbing partner I found a willing participant for Snake Dike on Half Dome. Shino a local from San Fran was up for it and we set off from the campsite at 5am the following morning. The long approach starts with the Mist Trail, a popular tourist walk up past beautiful waterfalls, then branches off on a “climbers path” heading for the amazing granite monolith that is half dome. After bushwhacking our way down a huge gully strewn with toppled trees and boulders it was clear that this would have been a raging torrent in spring. We were in fact not on the “climbers path” at all and the large granite dome we were heading for was not even Half Dome! Such is the size of the landscape enormous granite domes all look alike.
So we found ourselves back on the Mist trail 3 hours after we left it only this time we were low on food and out of water. Not to be deterred we pressed on, found the correct path and eventually found the base of the huge wall after scrambling over huge boulders of granite.
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| Below Snake Dike |
Snake Dike runs up the side of the dome and starts with two pitches of 5.7 before heading onto the strange protruding seam that runs vertically up the wall for another 6 pitches. Route finding isn’t a problem as you simply climb the seam on big holds to the top whilst on either side is smooth granite with no line for climbing at all.
After the first couple of pitches the route offers up no natural gear placements and you are left relying on in-situ bolts most of which are miles apart. One pitch has about 3 in the space of 30meters! Still the climbing eases massively after pitch three and the situation high on the mountain, rope swaying in the breeze for several meters above the nearest bolt, and stunning views over the High Sierra make this one of the most memorable climbs I have done...
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 | | Some run-out climbing |
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 | | Me at a Belay |
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 | | Easy route finding |
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 | | More of the same |
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The last few pitches degenerate
into a slabby hike, a back breaking slog to the summit. Then its a couple of
snaps, down the cables, and a 9 mile hike back to Camp 4. Dehydration levels
were off the scale by this point it should be noted. And if it wasn’t for some
nice walkers on the Mist trail, who kindly gave us a large bottle of water,
things would have been highly desperate. As it was we strolled into Camp 4
after dark highly satisfied...
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 | | Back breaking slab walking to the summit |
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 | | Summit cairns |
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 | | The huge visor on the North West Face |
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 | | The cables on the descent |
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