Posted on 06/14/2009 7:32:20 AM PDT by socal_parrot
The top of Half Dome is the most awe inspiring and spectacular place I’ve ever been. Hung my head over the top lip. Walked about 10’ from the edge then out of fear crawled and my hands and knees to about the last 3’ then crawled on my belly to the edge.
A website I used during my research before I climbed put the risk of climbing The Cables in the rain best...
"The granite is slippery to begin with, and rain just makes it that much worse. If you must try it anyway, please call your mother first so she can bet against you surviving and at least make some money to compensate her for all the trouble she took raising you."
Here is a view of The Cables...
I’m not saying that I know the circumstances of this tragic accident, but I have to say that the hordes of kids running around the western wilderness as the weather warms almost assures that some of them, inured as they are by video games in which there are never any real physical consequences of a given action, are bound to bite the dust.
Somehow that photo makes me think of “Stairway to Heaven.”
Anybody else getting sweaty palms just looking at that photo of the ‘Cables’?
Like ants to a picnic.....
I've done a lot of crazy things, dangerous thing, in my life, but climbing to the top of a cliff that's nearly a mile above the surrounding landscape in a hail storm isn't one of them. It's not going on my list, either. No disrespect to the deceased, but he chose poorly.
many conservative rock climbers?
that is what I woulda done too...I did that on top of a very tall office building in Houston once with a flat roof...no brim....Godawful scary
I used to climb a bit too...way back..mid 70s....easy stuff nothing like walls
Two doctors from Minnesota just died climbing Mt. McKinley. Is this what doctors do in their spare time. Climb dangerous mountains?
Thats even more courage than I've got........LOL!
A 1,800 feet drop from the top the only way they can pick him up would be with a spatula and a baggie sad.
I would think they’d have a bunch of knots or some kind of stopper at the end of rapelling ropes. Damn.
That’s not the side one climbs up on if hiking. The shoulder on the left is where hikers wind up after a long hike around the back side of this picture. The metal ladder and wire rope start there. My son and I went up to the top and back to the valley floor in one day. Needless to say we slept well that night.
I doubt it. I don't consider hauling myself up the Half Dome cables as rock climbing though. I'm 52 and the other 6 members of my party that climbed last weekend were mostly in their 50's with one at 24 and another at 62. Most of the people I saw on the climb were your run of the mill college age kids (lots of college sweatshirts). There were some family groups as well as some youth (Scouts?) groups. There were quite a few foreign (Asian and Euro) hikers too.
If you go to Camp Four below El Capitan where the hard core rock climbers are, you probably won't find many radios tuned Rush, Sean or Mark Levin.
Below is a picture of an incident on Half Dome from 2006. This guy was climbing the cables in slick soled shoes and also climbed outside the cables (not advisable) to let someone pass. He slipped and fell/slid 200 feet before coming to a stop just before a 2000 foot drop. He was conscious and lay there for 2 hours trying to maintain maximum friction on the rock, waiting for park rangers to come help. Rangers set a line above him and rappelled down.
“The top of Half Dome is the most awe inspiring and spectacular place I’ve ever been. Hung my head over the top lip. Walked about 10’ from the edge then out of fear crawled and my hands and knees to about the last 3’ then crawled on my belly to the edge.”
Gee - It’s not just me! ;-) To add ... then I saw some climbers a few hundred feet down - photographed them for a half hour or so and got their addresses and sent them copies.
Good God...what a pic.
Condolences to the hiker’s family.
never tried that trail, did a climb up to about 5K feet across from the valley from HalfDome and woke to magpies and snowy sunshiny conditions.. We (4 young Marines on a week-end off base) did this in April... and spent the next night in the campground. The bears fortunately were still hibernating.
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