Half Dome, Regular Northwest Face

By: David Patterson | Climbers: David Patterson, Gavin _?_|Trip Dates: May 10-13, 2000

Photo: Gary Clark

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My First Real Wall

Half dome wasn't actually Gavin and my first wall, but I think it's fair to call it our first "real" wall - kicking back on Dinner Ledge the week before and wondering if we shouldn't save our second box of cookies for the morning just doesn't seem to count.

Gavin had about a week left in the Valley, and a few days of dinking around on the Cathedrals had left us itching to jump on El Cap. The timing didn't seem like it was going to work out though - we needed an easy route, and the easy routes were all crowded. And we didn't have a portaledge, which makes the crowds that much more of an issue. We were talking about our options just about sunset, when the last rays of the sun make Half Dome look like the warmest place in the Valley, and that's all it took.

The forecast was vague and less than great. "Slight chance of rain tomorrow, then clearing," the Yosemite recording said. We asked a ranger type if she knew anything more long range - she squinted for a while and said "gunna rain". Great. Well, might as well check out that approach we'd heard so much about.

The Death Slabs were wet (not to mention that they're called Death Slabs), so we decided to haul it around the back. 11 AM the next day found us thrashing around off the shoulder of the Dome, looking for the "clearly established climbers trail". We'd heard we had a sketchy snowfield traverse to do, but the only hard part was keeping our uphill hands warm. We arrived at the base in time to get slapped by a rainstorm. Cheerful defeatism was the reigning mood. "We can just hang out here for a few days - it's way nicer than camp 4 anyway." We opened up a can of something meaty and waited it out.

Half Dome is probably the second most famous rock in the country's most visited climbing area, but it sure felt out there when we had it to ourselves - hardly the same as our "Does anybody have any salt?" experience on Washington Column. We were psyched, but we were scared too - but I'll say this for the approach, it sure makes it hard to say "Let's bail."

It cleared later, and on the grounds that "We hauled all that damn rack up here" we decided to fix the first few pitches - we'd have 4 days to recover our ropes if the weather turned ugly again. Wall climbing sure is easy when you have 5 hours of daylight and two pitches to do. We hauled the bag up, and rapped off with sleeping gear and a little spare food.

We woke up at first light to a semi-promising sky - OK, we couldn't see the top of the face through the fog, but it seemed like a nice fog. So we jugged and started cranking, and exploring just how wimpy the wall made us feel. Pitch 6 saw us aiding a 5.7 perfect hands crack. Pitch 7 was our "learn to lower out" adventure. Pitch 8 was Gav's first pendulum - it would have looked way cool if he's had a big flowing cape, and I was warm enough to appreciate it. I got sketched for 20 minutes on a "tricky pro" move on pitch 9. The clock was ticking - or it would have been, if we'd brought a watch. Our best estimate of remaining light was "hours and hours".

There's a crummy bivvy for two at the top of 11 - "sure glad we're not stopping here" we said, as I handed Gav the rack and settled in for another toasty belay. The next pitch was mostly aid, and we were slowing down - it's easy to say "I can aid climb while tired" sitting around a bowl of chile in camp, but every top step seems to take a little longer. Eventually I was jugging, freeing the bag, jugging, freeing the bag.. (haul outside the chimney on this one). Gavin kept saying that the haul line was stuck - but he was still hauling, so obviously he was just confused. Whatever. I was too focused on my semi-frantic jugging and tugging to pay him much mind. I think my body had figured out that the less efficiently I climbed, the warmer I stayed.

What Gavin had been telling me is that the other end of the haul line, which had slipped down an apparently featureless slab, had gotten stuck. It turned out that it was stuck with a vengeance - I rapped down to it on the lead line (God bless the GriGri for jobs like this), and ended up pulling 5.8 chimney moves just to get to the stuck bight. Ok, the chimney moves were probably 5.5 - but dammit, I was tired.

It was clear we were either climbing in the dark or sleeping at that crummy bivy - so down we went. A little padding here, move a rock there - this won't be so bad. 6 hours later we actually managed to sleep a bit. For future parties - this bivvy really blows, and what's more, it clearly turns into a waterfall if it rains (there were trickles coming down even though it hadn't rained.) Top of pitch 8 looks much nicer - and Big Sandy is a whole different world.

The next day was a nice, crisp Spring day - we could almost feel our fingers. We were tired, but we didn't have far to go - since we didn't have the guns to make it to the top, we were stopping at Big Sandy (16), and even we couldn't thrash enough to keep us from that. We started to notice the rule on Half Dome - the climbing just gets better and better as you go up. Double Cracks (pitch 16) was perhaps the coolest pitch of the route.

We got to Big Sandy, set up our tarp and sleeping bags, and watched the Valley get hammered by a rainstorm. Falling ice (a safe hundred yards away) made the wall sound like a death zone - I got hit by a piece the size of a peanut at one point. Yikes! Gav jumped into his bag to belay, and I led out to fix as much as possible before we got slammed. Gav claims it was sleeting halfway through my lead - damned if I noticed. We linked 17 and 18 - beautiful pitches - and I rapped back down to bed as the weather was clearing again. We once again replenished our spirits with the big wall food of the gods - fingerfulls of Nutella. Big Sandy is a swank, swank bivvy - not only is there room to stretch out, but there's a big chimney behind it that will catch runoff. For the first time, I went to bed confident I would sleep through the night. I had intended to bring an extra pair of socks, but somehow only one had made it - it was a sad comment on our existence how much we coveted the lone sock of warmth. Strangely, the weather seemed to warm up every time I was on lead, but never for long.

The next morning, our last day on. Only 4 pitches to go, but each one threw something at us. Gavin took our only fall on 19 - no big deal, it probably warmed him up. I got sketched on the 5.8 squeeze move with a nasty ledge fall after Thank God Ledge (what a cool pitch!). After half an hour of dillying, I ended up hooking past it. 21 saw Gavin pull off another wild pendulum - clipping a fixed pin at full running stretch. He also, joyfully, got to belay in a small waterfall. And 22, of course, was, at last, the top - complete with a few moves to get around snowbanks. What an amazing feeling - we could untie, we could drop stuff, we could dance around, we could hug each other, we could put the pig back on and crank 8 miles back to the valley. I'd call it an "E1" on the Epic scale - we missed the buffet, but the store was still open. We later on gathered we were likely the second ascent of the season - some hardmen had done it in a day the week before.

This trip was my first stab at walls - and I have to say, I need them in small doses. The intensity is pretty extreme for me - but the experience is one hell of an experience. It's pretty damn fun trying to worry about my worldly troubles late on day 2 of a wall - they all just seem to slide away into a daydream of a warm, flat bed and an enormous pizza. And they sure stay with you - it's been 3 weeks, and I can still remember every pitch, every belay, every time I got to wear the sock.