Half Dome

A view of the Valley from the Highway 41 Wawona tunnel view lookout, with Half Dome at the back, El Cap on the left, and Bridalveil Falls hammering down on the right.

The view of the Eastern end of the Valley from Five Open Books, with Royal Arches at far left, Half Dome at top left, and Glacier Point on the right. The walk up to Half Dome follows the valley at the foot of Glacier Point.

A view of the imposing North West face of Half Dome from Mirror Lake.

Snake Dike is an awesome day's outing, the route is very nice, the position is even nicer, and the summit is a ripper. Here's a shot from the top of Glacier Point showing the West face of Half Dome, Snake Dike goes roughly up the middle.

And here's another shot from Glacier Point, showing the territory you have to cover: at bottom left is the Valley Floor, where you start hiking. An hour or two later you'll reach Vernal and Nevada Falls, in the valley at far right. Then you'll cut left up the canyon on the left of Liberty Cap (the big obvious dome on the right), then up to Half Dome maybe 4 hours after you began. Phew!

Here's the crucial info:
Walk-in: Head up the John Muir Trail from Happy Isles, carry empty water bottles (3-4L ea) to begin with, you can fill them up at a water fountain at the Vernal Falls Bridge. Then continue up the Mist Trail (not the JMT) to the top of Vernal Falls, past Emerald Pool and carry on until the trail meets the base of Liberty Cap, just before Nevada Falls. Leave the Mist Trail here and head L around the base of Liberty Cap to join a trail which shows the best way into the canyon. After a bushy scramble down into the canyon it's easy walking up the canyon until it gets more scrubby near the end. Follow various climber's trails in the base of the gully until a trail breaks up L out of the gully. Follow this and an awesome view of Half Dome breaks through, walk straight towards it for about 100m on cairned trails and you'll find Lost Lake. Head around the L (W) side of the lake on a good trail, which leaves the lake and starts trending L uphill. Where this trail meets a saddle and starts to peter out, angle back R uphill through manzanita bush, the trails are unclear through here. Keep angling up R below rock slabs, getting quite high up close to the bulk of the dome, then cut L across the slabs at a fairly obvious weakness/ledge system. Initially this is not a problem but it gets a bit scary near the end with occasional 4th class moves and death fall potential. Where the ledges rejoin the scrub, follow trails further L until you have easy uphill walking to the base of the route.
Elevations / Walking Distances (from Happy Isles): Happy Isles (4035ft/1230m; 0km); Vernal Falls Bridge (? ; 1.3km); Top of Vernal Falls (5044ft/1538m; 2.4km); Emerald Pool (5044ft/1538m; 2.6km); Top of Nevada Falls (5907ft/1801m; 5.5km); Little Yosemite Campground (5907ft/1801m; 6.9km); Half Dome (8836ft/2693m; 11.3km).
Total elevation gain is 4801ft/1463m!

Here's a view of the back side of Half Dome, with Lost Lake in the foreground. The slabs below the shoulder of Half Dome are best breached by following the slanting gully up and R, then traversing across fairly high ledges to the bushy shoulder.

Gear: Very little! All I used was 4 cams (small yellow metolius, #1, #1.5 and #2 Friends), 4 long quickdraws, and lockers & slings for bolt belays (I used one of these long slings to extend gear below the roof on P1). I had stoppers but didn't use them once.

*** Snake Dike 5.7 (16) (OS)
1) (** 60m 5.7/16) Flake/crack to tree, up to overlap and #2Fr - extend it a lot. Back down L below golden glacier polish, smear up L (crux, not too hard for the grade) to L end of overlap (don't put gear in here!), follow fingercrack over bulge to ledge (belay possible but quicker not to). Follow nice flake/fingercrack (#1-1.5Frs) for another 20m to DFH belay at ledge. 2) (* 25m 5.6/14) Wander R across top of flakes, then drop down a little to a stretchy move across onto the dyke. Up dyke to overlap (#1.5Fr) and step over it on good footholds to a bolt. Continue up dyke for 7m to DFH belay. 3) (*** 45m 5.7/15) Leave the dyke and move up L from belay to a bolt, then step L and down a little to another tricky smearing sequence up and L to get to next dyke, skip the DFH here and go up 20m to the next DFH, only one more bolt but nice climbing. 4) (*** 35m 5.4/12) More runout nice dyke climbing past one bolt to DFH. 5) (** 30m 5.6/14) stay L past initial bolt, tricky moves back R to dyke then smear to bolt. Up tricky flake (#1Fr or smaller), then step R to dyke and easy to DFH at big pocket/hole. 6) (** 40m 5.4/12) Runout dyke to steepening (FH), DFH just above. 7) (* 40m 5.2/10) Leave the dyke and smear straight up surprisingly tricky slab from DFH to a flake/fingercrack. Up this then step over L to a ledge. (Alternatively follow the dyke which angles L, eventually stepping back R onto this same ledge). 8) (* 40m 5.2/10) Up slab above belay to small roof/overlap (small cams). Nice moves over it, then belay where happy to unrope. Hike 45mins up exposed slabs to the summit.

Here's a shot from the base of the route. Despite coming on a weekday with dubious weather, there was still 11 people on the route that day!! The climbers are on the 1st, 3rd and 4th belays.

And here's a shot of Nic on P3. (P5 in the guide).

And here's us halfway up the endless summit slabs, enjoying the view but feeling the pain! Glacier Point is on the left, note the big scars from recent rockfall....not a good place to climb! El Cap is off in the distance.

And finally, a view of the "visor" at the summit of Half Dome, perched over 1400m above the valley floor. Note the little cave right on the tip of it. Also note "tiny" Washington Column down below the visor, and El Cap off in the distance.

More Internet Sites on Half Dome Climbing

© 2002-2005 Will