Half Dome 1

So there you are, getting older by the day. You've been reading about the big walls of Yosemite Valley since you were a teenager. You've conquered college. You've had a successful career in high tech. And now you are part owner of a distribution company. What's left to do in the world? Why, getting up a truly classic big wall, of course.

Chapter 1 - Ancient History

As a rock climber, Yosemite is my Mecca. The Nose route on El Capitan and the Regular NW Face of Half Dome are like bookends to this magical place. It is unusual to be a traditional climber and not want to get up one of these great faces. It is the apex of a rock climber's hope. Like Everest's siren song to the alpine climber, the big faces of Yosemite call the rock master wannabes. I was no exception. A mixture of desire and dread lived within me about the prospect of climbing one of these monsters.

Somehow, other things got in the way; and it wasn't until about six years ago that I decided that I really wanted to get up a Grade V big wall. In particular, I wanted Half Dome. El Cap beckoned, but the dread was still stronger than the desire with respect to that stone. I geared up and arrived at the base with a climber I had met on the internet, Evan Bigall. I had the flu and was frankly scared of the wall once we got there. We didn't even get off the ground. Even went on to do some great climbing and cool travelling. Check out his site.

Chapter 2 - Modern History

Time passes. Adventures happen. Hey, guess what? Large journey's are possible if you just take the first step!

As my 40th birthday approached, getting up Half Dome started to become an obsession. I had been climbing with an old university acquaintance, Andrew Trzynka, for several years. We had made runs at several smaller (and easier) walls: Lotus Flower Tower, Moonlight Buttress, and Washington Column. Andrew and I were both climbing well enough to be successful if we could keep the freak-out factor in check (more about this later). I yammered and yakked and begged. I probably had made Andrew sick of my ranting, before we finally cruised down the highway and into the Valley. As I noted at the beginning, I could hardly think of anything better than being on the wall, or on the summit, at the halfway point of my life.

Chapter 3 - Getting Started

Taking the "work smarter, not harder" motto to heart, we hire a mule packer to deliver our 130 pounds of gear to the shoulder of Half Dome. I don't feel this is cheating. I mean, you used a car to get to the Valley, didn't you? Anyway, we hump our gear down the climbers trail to the base of the face and begin cultivating a fine case of pre-climb jitters. To get ourselves psyched up and committed, we sensibly decide to fix the first pitch. We could then blast off in the morning with a minimum of waffling and whining. So up I go, in the soft light of the late afternoon. This "fix-a-pitch-in-the-evening" would be a theme I would repeat twice more durng the days of the climb.

Swooooop! Down I rap after fixing the first pitch. Making the first foray up the huge expanse of granite breaks the spell and eased our nerves. We are feeling pretty damn good about things. We roll out our sleeping bags to sleep beneath the stars with the route looming above us. I simply cannot describe the feeling of lying there in the dying light looking up at 2000 feet of sheer rock wall rising into the sky. Knowing that the next day you are going to be somewhere up there doing battle with gravity. It must be similar to starting out in a small boat across the ocean. Or the first day on a 1000 mile trek. The distance to travel seems endless.

What the hell!? Rain? At 3:00am we are wakened by a steady rain. We semi-expected this, and scramble down to a tent that another party had left at the base. What we didn't expect is that it will continue to rain for the next 36 hours, pinning us down at the base for an entire day. To kill the time, we sleep as much as possible. This forced bivi does nothing for our nerves.

Finally, morning dawns clear. There is nothing to do but gather our soaked gear and get on with it. We end the first day at the sloping bivi at the top of pitch 6. Since I am doing the odd pitches and Andrew is doing the even pitches, I get the task of running up and fixing pitch 7. Swoop, down I come to a dinner of Dinty Moore stew and canned peaches. Umm, umm, good.

Half Dome, Day 1