Snake Dike is an uber classic route that climbs up the right side of Half Dome (when facing the cliff), and then descends the left side down the cables that are used by hikers. this was one of the most adventurous days of our roadtrip so far!
here is a quick rundown of the day:
530a: wake up at Camp 4
615am - 1045am (4.5 hours): hike 6 miles to base of Snake Dike
1045am - 545pm (7 hours): climb Snake Dike
545pm - 630pm (45 min): summit photos and descend the cables
630pm - 1045pm (4.25 hours): hike down 8+ miles back to Nessa
TOTAL TIME: ~17 hours
super early start time:
we set the alarm for 530am. jason got moving even before i did! he was pretty excited for the day :) we got to the parking lot by 6am.
approach to the base of Snake Dike:
its 615am, and we’re off. its so early, and no coffee. i'm barely awake, and i'm cranky. fortunately, the Mist Trail was a fairly easy trek with either pavement or huge granite block stairs. however, unfortunately, it was uphill for the first few miles. as expected, i was not happy about this. i was on the verge of hating life. (i can be such a brat!) it was at the beginning of this hike when i realized that Jason had mentioned that it could "take climbers numerous hours to get to the base of the climb." i had no idea the actual mileage to get there. turns out, it is a 6-mile hike to get to the base of the climb! its probably better that i realized this after we had already started the hike. ;)
the first viewpoints along the trail were beautiful waterfalls. the trail goes right by the lower waterfall, so you’re getting misted with water while hiking. it’d feel great in hot weather, but being so early and cool, getting wet like that was just cold instead. again, i was not exactly happy with this, but i was trying to keep it to myself. but I’m also pretty sure that jason could tell.
on our way, to the second waterfall, the trail went into this “hallway” of trees. we stopped to snap a few pictures. as we were getting started hiking again, jason spotted a bear! whoa! we’re walking around trying to find the best spot to view it. and as we find a good spot, the bear does the same – and there we are, staring at each other! oh geez. its heading in the direction of the trail in front of us. bear wins! j and I turn around and back track in a quicker-than-a-brisk-walk speed. we wait a little while and then go to see where the bear went. we spot it. it had crossed the trail and was now heading back into the woods on the other side. phew. that was so cool! and also kinda scary.
you can kind of see the bear in the upper right.. he's staring right back at us!
further along the hike, we saw a rattlesnake eating a mouse right on the trail. crazy. i think it was nervous with us being so close. it was coiling on itself dealing with the mouse, but yet trying to be on guard and keeping eyes on us. interesting to watch, but we quickly moved along.
after hiking about 3+ miles on the Hikers' Trail, eventually jason and i found the Climbers’ Trail. it was hard to spot and follow, but rock cairns were lighting our way. we went through a forested and marshy area, and then we had to scramble over slabby rocks for about the last mile or so. scary! we saw three other parties on the upper half of the climb. very cool to see! they highlighted the route that we’d climb. they must have gotten a really, really early start. we're thinking they may have even slept at the base of the climb.
you can see the climbers following the dikes in the rock
then, just before getting to the base of the climb, i saw another rattlesnake! it was just sunning itself in some sand. it wasn’t very long, but it was fat – maybe 4’ and 2.5” in diameter. whew, totally caught me by surprise! but i think i scared him too bc he quickly moved away from me and into the trees. so much wildlife!
at last, jason and i got to the base of the climb!
Total time to hike: 4.5 hours. wow, i hike really, really slowly.
climbing Snake Dike:
Snake Dike is known to be 6-8 pitches depending on your preference, and then 1000' of simul-climbing. this term can be described as the climber and the belayer climbing at the same time with a few pieces of gear in between them (when usually a belayer stays in one place while the climber is climbing). so essentially, at the top, jason and i were climbing at the same time. we were doing this in the interest of saving time.
Pitch 1:
jason racks up and starts up the climb. the climbing is "friction slab" - typical, to me, for granite rocks. this means there are no real "holds." instead, you just have to trust little divits in the rock for your hands and feet. there was one small crux on this pitch that required you to trust and use the friction, but it wasn’t too bad and it wasn’t very long – maybe just a couple moves.
Pitch 2:
the second pitch was a traverse out right. it wasn’t terrible. some friction/trusty feet, but the hand-holds were fairly decent.
belay station of carabiners, slings and the rope
Pitch 3:
at this pitch, we got off route (in other words, we went the wrong way). from the belay, following the line bolts, it looked like you climbed up and right and onto a quartz dike. so, jason went that way. as he’s climbing and following bolts, he has to veer left and continue up some serious granite slab - there are no real holds, only those small divits. its bolted, but its completely runout (meaning lots of space in-between bolts, so if he didn't make it, he would take a huge fall). it was actually really, really scary. he clips a bolt, makes some sketchy, trusty moves and establishes himself on this granite “lip” which isn't very secure at all. at that point, i expected him to clip another bolt, but he doesn't! he must continue climbing. again, he makes more sketchy, slabby friction moves (where a hand or a foot can slip at any moment and he'd take that scary fall), and he finally clips another bolt. phew! once both bolts are clipped, its easy to see at least a 20’ runout. wow, so scary! but its not over - he follows the quartz dike with better holds and realizes that he doesn’t see anchors. however, he does see anchors about another 25’ to his left. (wrong way!) so he downclimbs part of the dike, and then makes yet another sketchy traverse to the left to where he can finally clip bolted anchors. as hes making this traverse, he's still at least another 20’ above his last bolt. geez!! SOOOO SCARY! such bad fall potential. but fortunately he did safely get back on route!
this is actually a photo of the dike that turned out to be the wrong direction
as i start climbing this pitch, i look over to my left and i see a bolt! i tried to tell the party behind me where it was since what Jason just did was quite harder than what it says in the route description. however, the girl couldn't see the bolt. i spent a few minutes trying to point it out. she finally sees it and tells me its pretty invisible to her due to the angle of the bolt. i’m guessing that is exactly why jason didn’t see it either. it was perfectly positioned to make it hard to see from the belay station.
so the climbing we did was quite scary! there were some serious friction moves on nothing holds! and the bolts were so far apart. jason led a great pitch. when I got to him, he said that was definitely pushing his comfort level. however, while watching him climb, i could barely tell. he has such an amazing capacity to keep it all together when he's climbing something that pushes his limits - physically and mentally. its very inspiring.
granite slab at its finest. eek.
Pitch 4
phew, the climbing really eased off now. we’re on the correct quartz dike and the holds are real holds! jason puts up the pitch pretty easily. however, he does try to push it to a possible anchor, but we’re short on rope, so again he ends up downclimbing 20’ to a belay station that is only 20’ above me. silly really.
Pitch 5 – 8
the climbing eased off even more so for the rest of the climb. it was pretty slabby, but we had to make our way over or around these big boulders that were sitting on top of the dome. pretty interesting when you think about it - big boulders sitting on slabby rock, and are not sliding off? jason thinks we climbed at least a total of 8 pitches.
1000’ of simul-climbing
after a while, we reached a point where setting up belays would take longer than just simul-climbing. simul-climbing is always a scary thought to me, but we were limited with the remaining daylight , so I was in for it. we’d climb at the same time - he’d place gear, while I cleaned it when i got there. there should always be at least 2 pieces of gear between us. if there weren’t, then i’d need to wait where i was until he found another gear placement. at one point, he did belay me up to him, so that he could get the gear back. it was a long 1000’. it actually felt like hiking all over again!
Total time to climb: 7 hours. Jason said our pace was pretty good :)
Taking photos and descending the cables:
we finally summited! it was cold and windy on top of the Dome. very exposed – brr! J took some photos - some were even the classic Half Dome photo. I was too scared to go on the “hanging” ledge, but I did get in a few poses :)
j and i got ready to lower ourselves using the hiker cables. he rigged up prusiks for us, and we got started. It actually wasn’t very bad at all. The rock wasn’t too slick, nor steep. The prusik really was just a back up. it was almost ok not to use it, but I will admit, I’m really glad that it was there.
jason is walking around looking for the Hikers' Cables
found 'em!
we tried a rope rappel first, but we couldn't be sure that it would reach
so we used the cables. you can see the worn path on the rock face.
Total time to descend, including summit pics: 45 minutes
Hiking back to Nessa: 630p – 1045p
its an 8+ mile hike back to the parking lot. so we got started immediately. jason wanted to cover as much ground as we could while it was still light out. however, we ended up hiking mostly in the dark. luckily, it was all downhill so that helped a lot, but it also hurt a lot. in the end, my knees were killing me.
Total time to hike down: 4hrs, 15 mins
what a day!
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