Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Half Dome Permits

One of the problems with Half Dome is you have people doing it just so they can SAY they've done it. And a LOT of people have no idea what they're getting them selfs into. So you end up with the full range of skill sets.

From people like this, who either have skill or at the very least guts/no fear,


To people that freak and freeze on the cables. I haven't been up there in 5 years or so, so I don't know if things have changed, but every time I went the cables were a misery of slowness because SOMEONE up ahead was freaking out.





The girl in blue top/ping shorts, this was her third attempt this afternoon to go up the cables. I have to hand it to her that she kept trying, but I gather from idle discussion on the way up that she kept trying, and then turning back. Unfortunatly she didn't make it on this attempt, she turned back again.

I wonder how many people get no farther than the cables due to fears?



All this discussion about HD is making me want to do the trip again this coming summer!

Exactly

I love to sit and enjoy the wonderful views, I certainly don't do it to say I have lol

Here I am at Taft Point, a nice place to find a bit more solitude then Glacier Point:

RP - Wow! What a perfect view from Taft Point!! Such a clear and beautiful day that must have been.

I hope thats a pack and not a dog yer holding...

It used to give me the willies to get near an edge, even for the first three years of technical climbing I couldn't look down, so I looked out, and on rappel I looked straight ahead, once I walked right of an overhang that I didn't see coming. Rapping off overhangs is an art. You go horizontal and even lower then simply hop off, swing under and your head should clear.

Now I can stand on a 1 inch ledge 500' up and look straight down and feel nothing. My body has learned to trust my head.
Jim

My nads still retract up to around my armpits just thinking about getting so close to the edges of the points. I'm not a climber.

That's what happened to me the first time I tried Half Dome... I think it was in 1999. I totally froze when I saw those cables... it looked like they were going straight up! I waited at the base of the cables while my friend went up to the top.

The following year we tried it again, and this time he promised that he would stay right behind me, and that he'd make sure I was OK. It worked.... what a THRILL to get to the top! I've got kind of a "fear of heights" issue, and I didn't think I'd make it. I was also worried about the descent, but (amazingly) I wasn't afraid at all going down...I think I was still on an adrenaline high!

I've been up four more times since then, and I still feel a bit of "nerve" going up those cables, but it's always worth it when I get to the top.

Rofl! no it's not a dog, it's my camera pack.

And yeah that was a wonderful day to be in Yosemite other then the crowds, was a free day so it had even more people, that whole mess of images is here.

As for heights I have always loved being up high and with cliffs I have complete confidence in myself when I stand next to one, I often will walk up to the edge and bend out over looking down, although sometimes when I do that I like to think of what it would be like if you fell, I mean just the single second of slipping and going over the edge, that moment would be well... something.

That is exactly me now.In my youth up to having kids I had no fears of heights or ledges. I have learned from having kids with no fear to have my own fears and phobias. I can't look over any ledge anymore.I also think the older you get the more cautious you become because of all the injuries suffered from sports and fearless activities start to remind you of your vulnerability.

yup - I was pretty much expecting to witness Darwin's laws in action that day, but alas, there was no proof for his theories. It was 1988, so who knows how far those genes have spread by now

I haven't been to Half Dome since 1989, and when I found out a few years ago that overnight camping was not allowed any longer, I pretty much crossed that trail off my maps. Don't think I'll be going up there again. I go to the Sierras to get away from people and crowded places, not to find myself in a traffic jam. Too many people on the planet - you have to go deeper into the wilderness to get your solitude fix.

The thing about walking the slope is not the difficulty, but the fact that you have to do it all on friction, and if you make one mistake, it could very likely be your last one.

We used to wear harnesses and clip into the cable with a carabiner. I still remember how people stared at us, either thinking "why didn't I think of that myself," or "what a bunch of pussies"