Michael and I had arrived the day before and hiked about halfway making a detour off the tourist trail onto a climbers’ trail and finding a spot to bivy for the night. We awoke before dawn and finished the rest of the strenuous approach to the base of the climb. It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies, the weather perfect for our climb. When we arrived at the base we could see a party ahead of us already making their way up the face and from behind we couldn’t see anyone approaching yet. This made us happy knowing we wouldn’t have to feel rushed with people climbing behind us, because it is a very popular route and earlier in the year there would be a line by 8:00am.
We unpacked our gear and got it organized and then I proceed to lead the first pitch. This one went fairly easily because the first part was more like fourth class and after setting a couple pieces of protection I was already at the first belay spot. By the time I reached this point, another party had arrived below and was preparing to follow us up. I belayed Michael up to where I was and since I still had most of the gear, I led the second pitch as well, which meant that Michael would have to lead the 5.7 friction traverse on the third pitch, something we were both a bit apprehensive about.
You have to understand that the curved face of Half Dome is relatively featureless, which means that in many cases there is nothing to hold on to and the only thing keeping you on the rock is the stickiness of your climbing shoes and your precarious balance as you try not to slip. This lack of features also means that there aren’t very many places to place protection and after the first couple pitches there aren’t any spots to place protection and the only thing you can rely on are the bolts, which are few and far between. About halfway through the second pitch, I ran out of places to put protection and had to make it to the first set of bolts. I followed a fairly obvious dike line that went up and to the right and then continued on ahead. The information we had on the route warned us not to keep following this because it would take us off route and onto another, harder climb, Snake Dance. I couldn’t see the bolts and I wasn’t sure which way to go after a while. I knew we had to go left eventually and I thought I had actually reached the friction traverse so I left the safety of the dike and made my way out onto the open slab. There was nothing for me to hold on to and the moves felt very delicate as I tried to keep my feet from slipping. The thing that made it even scarier was the fact that my last piece of protection was at least 20 feet below me. This means that if I fell, I would not only have to fall the 20 feet to the location of the protection but also another 20 feet because that’s how far I was above it, plus whatever extra slack is in the rope because it can’t be kept tight or Michael would pull me right of the rock. I made it about ten feet out before I realized it definitely wasn’t right and had to backtrack to the dike. Once there, I followed it a little farther and finally found the bolts I was looking for. I tied myself in and belayed Michael up.
Michael started out directly on the 5.7 friction traverse and the comments he was making didn’t sound like it was a pleasant time. I’m sure his new shoes, which hadn’t been used enough to develop the rough surface that helps with friction, were not helping to allay his fears. His foot did actually slip about four inches, not much, but enough rattle his nerves. He finally made it across and clipped the bolt waiting on the other side, much to his relief. As he was continuing up the third pitch, I was belaying below, and was soon joined at my spot by a girl from the two-person party that had started right behind us. She was climbing with her boyfriend and she made it sound like he was in a bit of a rush. Not what we wanted following us because pressure to climb faster is not what we needed. She had to wait until Michael reached the next belay spot and I could start off before she could belay her boyfriend up, which meant he was probably getting impatient below wondering why she wasn’t calling out for him to proceed up.
After Michael completed the pitch and finished setting up the anchor, I said goodbye and started the traverse. I could tell right away why Michael was making comments. It’s a pretty sketchy feeling to be out on the openness of that slab trying to make your way across. I felt a bit better about it because I was following which means the rope was above me and the most I could have fallen if I slipped was a couple feet. By this time a stiff breeze had kicked up and there were a few clouds off in the distance, but this just made it a bit nippier.
After making it across the traverse, the famous Snake Dike itself starts. The dike is like the spine of a dinosaur, a long hump with features like vertebrae continuing upwards for the next five hundred feet. It provided good holds for both hands and feet but the surrounding rock was blank. I climbed the dike until I reached Michael at the belay and when I arrived he pointed out some ominous looking clouds off in the distance. One of the warnings for many of the exposed climbs, such as this one, is to get off of the rock if you see storm clouds because there is the risk of lighting. We discussed it briefly but decided to push ahead since the clouds were a ways off. I started up the dike to lead this pitch and even though it was now quite a bit easier, it became a lot more dangerous due to the fact that the protection points were now very far apart. For this pitch there were only two places to clip for safety: sixty-five feet up and then the belay seventy-five feet after that. This is what is known as a runout. This also means that if for some reason you happened to screw up right before you clipped the last bolt and fell, you would tumble down the rough rock face for a hundred and fifty feet. You probably wouldn’t die, but you would be seriously injured.
I made it to the belay without incident and set up the anchor. I looked below and saw that the boyfriend had reached Michael’s belay and the girl was not far behind. Michael then yelled up and told me he was going to let them pass. So I got as comfortable as possible and waited while the girl climbed up towards me. I looked up to the sky and watched amazed, as out of nowhere, dark clouds would form as if by magic, and this time right above us. I started to get a little scared as my imagination ran wild and thought about the instantaneousness of death by lighting. I wouldn’t even know it had happened. The girl finally made it up and then her boyfriend followed, passed us, and continued up. The whole process of passing took much longer than I thought and really wasn’t necessary since we weren’t climbing much slower than them.
Once they had moved on, Michael climbed up to where I was and I asked him seriously if we should bail and rappel back down to the bottom. He thought about it briefly, but decided we should press on. It seemed like a good idea since we were about halfway up and it would have been more trouble to try to get back down. Little did we know what we were in for.
Mike started up the next pitch and this about the time when the wind really started to pick up. It had been getting noticeably stronger since we started but over the course of the next two pitches it picked up to a serious gale. Mike made it to the belay and I followed with the wind blowing strong all around. We had a good-sized backpack that we had put all the gear in for the approach and had been passing it back and forth so that only the person following had to deal with it. When I had reached Michael’s belay, I had the backpack on but I just wanted to keep going so I kept in on to lead the next pitch. This is where things started to get really crazy and hit its peak intenseness. The wind was blowing so hard that when I turned back to say something to Michael, I had to yell as loud as I could and even though he was probably five feet away, he still couldn’t hear me. We estimated that the wind was averaging about 60 mph with 80 mph gusts. As I climbed, I would have to compress myself against the rock and hold on for dear life, as the gusts would try to whip me off. The fact that I was wearing the backpack, which acted like a sail, didn’t help matters either. And to add to it all, this was the longest runout with not a single bolt until maybe ten feet below the next belay. So that made for about 110 feet of climbing with out any protection in hurricane-like winds. Not what I’d call optimal conditions. Fortunately, I made it in one piece.
Michael came up behind me and we took a rest for a moment. We only had a couple pitches left and the grade of climbing was now at its easiest, but now we had reached another friction section. This part would usually be a nice, easy way to start ending the climb. But with the wind how it was, it became a game of balance, leaning against the wind, trying to judge when the wind was going gust so you could lean harder. Luckily, it was Michael’s turn to lead. He made his way out into the blankness and read the wind well as he leaned this way and that wending his way up to the next belay. Here we took a nice, leisurely rest, slightly sheltered from the wind and noticed that we were quite alone on this rock. The girl and her boyfriend had disappeared ahead of us long ago and the other parties that had started a little later must have bailed because of the weather.
I lead the last pitch with a little route finding difficulty and then belayed Michael up. This was technically the end of the climb but we still had ‘3rd class slabs forever’, as the beta put it. This meant that the rock had little enough incline that we could hike the rest of the way, but the consequences of falling could be serious. The wind was still blowing hard and it became a series of dashes while the wind was steady and then crouches when it gusted. And it did seem to go on forever. Finally we saw a bunch of cairns and then people. We had reached the top of Half Dome and were rewarded with a stunning view of Yosemite Valley. We rested and took it all in for a little while and then it was time to go. We still had a long way to go.
The descent started out great with a fun down-climb using the cables and passing the tourists when they would let us by. But it soon became quite torturous. We had run out of water a while ago and there wasn’t a stream, or a pond, or anything to provide us with some. I became so dehydrated that I had no energy to find the pack we stashed and Michael went off to look for it. He couldn’t find it so I ended up having to go anyway because I was the one who had hid it. There was still a long hike to go and by the time we made it back to the regular trail that followed the river, I felt somewhat delirious. We found a place to go down by the water, the Emerald Pool beneath Vernal Falls, and drank deeply. It tasted so amazingly cool and refreshing.
We hiked the rest of the way down the trail witnessing the most beautiful sunset with the sky lit up in incredible shades of purple and pink. It was dark by the time we made it to the car, but soon we were on our way home after a very long day.