An Epic Adventure

The American West is a vast and wild place, covering an amazing array of different landscapes. Yosemite National Park truly embodies that essence of wilderness. Few other places are as recognizable and typify the ruggedness of the American west. I do wonder why I had waited so long to see the place where the gods of granite roam free...

Last weekend when I was driving to Shasta up north I got a phone call in the car. It was my friend Leslie and she said a campsite was available at Yosemite and inquired if I wanted to go. Well, it took less than a New York second to say yes! Bing, a nice young gal from Planet Granite had secured a campsite for an anchoring course she was to take with another fella, Michael. Immediately we began to plan the trip out.

We left downtown San Francisco around 1pm on Friday, arriving in the park some hours later. The immenseness of the granite walls was so abrupt when we ran into El Capitan without choice but to stop and take some photos, here is Leslie and Chef Dan:


My friend Chef Dan had a vision of climbing Snake Dike, the most least technical route up Half Dome on the southwest face. This would be a special trip for Dan, for this was his first time climbing outdoors and it would be at Yosemite! For those who don't know it, Half Dome is one of the most photographed features in the park, as well as the most popular! We were determined to climb it and set about preparing. We all gathered the gear we would need for the climb and Dan set about planning an immaculately delicious menu for the duration of the trip. Our first meal on Friday night set the culinary tone for the rest of the weekend! Here is the man himself hard at work doing what he does best- keeping people happy:


He plated asparagus, prawns, lobster tail, fresh avocado and tomato as well as a mixed green salad with a vinaigrette! I don't care who ya are, THAT is how to eat in the woods!

From experience I knew we had to make an early start for our summit attempt of Half Dome. I elected for all of us to leave around 3am to push for an early afternoon top out. Getting to the trail from out campsite was easy, pretty soon we were hiking along the mist trail, those that have done it know why it is named that!

Leslie received rather precise directions from a friend at Planet Granite about a shortcut to the base of Snake Dike. So, following her direction we emerged into a sort of canyon, complete with snow and a babbling brook, Dan below:

We scrambled through super dense manzanita bushes, up and then across massive slabs to reach the base of the climb, which was no small task in itself. I'd even make a bold claim to say that the approach was tougher than the climb itself (at least the first pitch).


Everyone was having an awesome time though, in an absolutely rugged location.

Even Leslie couldn't contain her smile. I was joking with them about when I have magnificent ski days my teeth go numb from smiling too much, had the temperatures been colder the same would've happened to all of us!

Anyway, by the time everyone gets to the base of the climb to begin it is already after 11am and I had a strong suspicion we would be too late. I went up anyway and as soon as I was 50 feet up I seemingly ran out of holds, that and a glance to my left revealed fast approaching thunder clouds. At this point I knew our attempt was sacked and we had to get off the mountain.

What was so cool about Yosemite is the hugeness of everything, I mean from the time we saw the thunder clouds and the time it rained was perhaps 3-4 hours, the air is so clear you can see practically forever. Soon after I got off Snake Dike, I made a really critical mistake, I suggested we take another short cut. From the map I could tell we were only a mile from our campsite by the crows flight, so I decided we just take the path less traveled and bushwhack back to camp.

After getting off the ridge from Half Dome, I lead us around, through old forest fire debris from 1998 and down through thick brush. At this point, we knew getting down was going to present some difficulties, but all parties present figured this was a better option than backtracking. Well hindsight is always 20-20, so I should prepared for a possible retreat before we even got to the route. Looking back I wish we had gone around the other side of Half Dome, where the typical tourist trail runs back to the mist trail.

Already committed to descending the way we were, it started getting steeper and steeper. On our first rappel, the thunderstorm hit; dumping hail, lots of rain and very cold temperatures. Dan and Leslie had never rappelled before and so I improvised a system to lower them down the steep pitches. We rappelled probably 7-8 pitches, I'd estimate we descended several thousand feet. In areas where we could scramble, we did just that of course.

I tied a couple overhand knots into one end of the rope and they both clipped into these with their locking carabiners. Then I would run the rope around a tree and to myself. As I rappelled they used their body weight to hold me up and when I got to the bottom I would lower them down using my gri-gri. After a couple of these we got the system down, but not before dark came when we had to make our last rappel.

The last couple rappels were the most miserable of all, right down super-slick, less-than-vertical waterfalls. The thunderstorm made them run pretty good and we had to rappel right down through them. I remember distinctly throwing my rope off to begin rappelling and hearing it splash into a pool of water- great! Since I was lowering Dan and Leslie down inch by inch, they were at the mercy of the rope and I feel very bad for this. Since they did not have the rope management skills to do it themselves, I tried my hardest to make it a smooth descent, but they slipped and banged their bodies into the rock, resulting in lots of bruises.

Our progress was agonizingly slow, but I was super anal about safety and making sure everyone got down without getting hurt, it was a blessing we all had helmets on for the duration of the descent. When at last we reached an area where we could scramble down through the talus fields I knew we were close. I could actually see campfires through the trees and I knew the road leading to camp was down there. After leaving Snake Dike around noon, we all staggered into camp after 10pm, utterly beat.

I am glad we all made it off the mountain safely. Poor Dan and Leslie, I promise I do not normally do trips like this! As Dan's first time climbing outdoors and mine to Yosemite, we got our butts kicked, but it is always humbling to know how the boss is- mother nature.

The real value from this trip came from the human connections though, everyone was able to maintain their cool in the face of danger and we cheerfully made our way off the mountain, which is the only way to do things outdoors- with a big smile.