Sun, Jan 25, 2015
|
With: | Matthew Holliman |
It was quite dark at that time of course, and still dark when we started from
the hiker parking lot near Curry Village around 5:40a. It was 30F in the valley
but warmer higher up and we would be down to just tshirts in the first 30min
of hiking. That first hour was spent hiking up the JMT/Mist Trail.
Headlamps were turned off shortly above Vernal Fall and by the time we reached
our
trail exit at Liberty Cap it was plenty light to see by. We followed
the use trail around the
west side of Liberty Cap to the
narrow gap between it and Mt. Broderick. There was only a modest amount
of brush to contend with and
almost no snow and ice save for
some in the upper reaches that was not too difficult to navigate around.
When we reached
Lost Lake we found more meadow than lake, the sun just
beginning to shine on the upper reaches of Half Dome's
South Face. We
followed the use trail and then ducks past Lost Lake and up the
class 3 slabs at the base of the South Face,
traversing left
(west) up and
around to the start of the Snake Dike
route on
the SW side.
It was 8:40a when we reached the start.
It was no surprise that we had the route
and seemingly the whole mountain to ourselves. What was surprising was
how nice weather was. We knew it would be unseasonably warm today, but had no
idea it would be in the low 50s this early in the morning. I had brought several
jackets, wool gloves, down mittens, balaclava, another hat and even another pair
of pants, but all of this would go unused. There was only a light breeze and
bright sunshine and one might have been excused for guessing it was May instead
of January. We were but ten minutes in getting our gear sorted out and starting
up the route. The plan was to belay the first two pitches where the climbing is
more difficult, then simulclimb the remaining six pitches or so. Our rack was
fairly light, consisting of just two cams, half a dozen carabiners and about the
same number of slings. I placed a single cam on
the first pitch
with the only
other placement somewhere above on the simulclimb section. The rest of the route
I made use of the bolts which appear to be sprinkled about the face in a nice
proportion. The second pitch makes an annoying
traverse to the right,
up and then
back left to reach
the
main dike. The three bolts I clipped into on P2 create
enough friction that it seemed smarter to belay Matthew back over to the main
dike before starting to simulclimb. For the
simulclimb portion,
I had five Tiblok
devices which I placed at judicious points to make sure we always had one between
us (the Tiblok allows rope travel in one direction - up, blocking it in the
downward direction should Matthew fall - this prevents me from being pulled off
with him). Matthew's job was to manage the rope from below, taking in rope if
if there was too much slack, paying it out if he paused to rest. In practice
there was little to manage since I was climbing in front at a faster pace than
Matthew, so we always had the full rope length between us. We finished the
roped climbing in two hours, spending another 30min to climb the
endless slabs to
the top. There was only the
barest of snow at the summit saddle where I jokingly
suggested Matthew should go ahead to test out the snow bridges.
The views from the summit are sublime, one of the finest viewspots in
all the Sierra, imo. The chasm of Yosemite Valley stretches out to
the west with Tenaya Canyon and Clouds Rest to
the east. To
the south is Mt. Starr King while to the southeast are the higher
summits of Yosemite in the
Cathedral and
Clark ranges.
Having the top to ourselves was quite the treat compared to the usual summertime
hordes. As were starting down to the cables, a much younger man popped up from
the route, having just managed the hand-over-hand climb with little
more than a pair
of shorts and some muscle. It was quite a contrast to our laden packs. His two
friends had decided not to join him for the final stretch, choosing to lay out
in the sun at
the base and wait for his return. Matthew and I had
planned on using prussiks for the descent and that is what he set about doing
when he reached the
top of the cables. I simply did what the other guy
had done in reverse,
descending the 400ft or so in about 5min. I
chatted briefly with the two friends at the bottom, then climbed a short
distance up to Half Dome's shoulder where I could
better view Matthew's
descent. Because he had to change the prussik 4-5 times where the cables
were anchored to the ground he was
necessarily slower. The other climber had
started down
while Matthew was still
only about 1/3 of the way down and to his credit he was very patient to wait
for Matthew to descend before going lower himself. I'm not sure I would have
had the patience. In the meantime, another climber had come up from below and
was about to start up. He, too, waited for Matthew to make his descent before
starting up. Though it seemed like an hour that I waited there on the shoulder,
it was only 35min and I really had nothing to complain about. It was
warm, scenic, relaxing, and best of all, we had plenty of time.
It was but 12:30p when we started down the shoulder. We began to run
into
additional parties with surprising regularity. The lack of snow had brought more
people to the base of Half Dome today than it usually sees in several months
this time of year. There was some snow at the base of the shoulder on the
north side, but no more than 4-5" deep and
heavily packed
by the many visitors over the past few weeks. The rest of
the return
was mostly uneventful. Not surprisingly, we came across more and more
folks the further we descended until it looked like a
summertime crowd when we were on the
Mist Trail below
Vernal Fall. To avoid
the crowds we took the less-used route around the south side of the Merced River
once we had reached the junction just above the bathrooms and viewing bridge
below Vernal Fall. We arrived back in the
parking lot
shortly after 3p, making
for an outing of less than 10hrs, far better than we had expected. We bought
ice cream and cold drinks at the Curry Village store before heading out.
Temperatures in the shady Valley were only 45F and it felt chilly. Who'd have
guessed that the
High Country would have been far warmer, sunnier and
so pleasant in late January?
For more information see these SummitPost pages: Half Dome
This page last updated: Sun Oct 15 16:10:09 2017
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