Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Cables at Half Dome: Is anyone else scared?

We hiked this in preparation for Whitney. I heard about the infamous cables, but no one mentioned to me the steps in the rocks leading up there. I literally sat on a step and said I could not go another step. I sent my husband on and told him I would wait right there in the middle of the steps for him. My legs ere shaking, and I couldn't keep my balance.

Sitting there, I saw people passing by. One passerby actually stopped to talk to me to see why I was sitting there. He told me that I should go along with him, the old-timer, and his hiking partner. I could go as slow as I wanted and lead them up because they were going slow anyway. After many encouraging words, John convinced me to go. I made it up the steps to the cables and wanted to cry.

My husband and a couple other people from our group were at the base of the cables resting before going up. He was amazed to see my there! He started bringing me everyone's hiking poles and packs to watch while they went up the cables. That's when John said, "Let's go!" I told my husband that I was going up the cacbles before I lost my never. I took off with John without rest.

Fear does not begin to describe my feelings about heights. Step by step, hand over hand, I made it to the top. After each post on the cables, I rested, took a deep breath, and whined...all the way to the top!

Thank you trail angel!!

I have never ascended the cables, but I have descended them, early in the season before the steps or the posts are put in. As an avid climber I am used to working with lots of exposure, but I clipped into the cable with a harness, sling, and biner to come down. I too am surprised that so many non-climbers go up there each year. If I had my way, we'd pull the cables out of the rock and establish three or four rap stations for climbers to descend. But that is unlikely to happen anytime soon. The cables are really just a rock climb with fixed protection. If you think of it as rock climbing with really great protection rather than hiking you'll do better. Like any climb, if you feel like you need more protection, use it. Buy a harness, two slings, and two locking biners and clip into the cables.

I've seen people clipped into one of the cables with a sling and biners, but this is not a safe practice. Imagine if you fell 20 feet before your biner caught at a post on a 2 foot sling. Your fall factor is close to 5 on a static system. The biners or slings will certainly break! They aren't designed to absorb energy like a dynamic climbing rope, especially with such an extreme fall factor. Doing what you and others describe simply provides a false sense of security.

I climbed Half Dome when I was working in Yosemite one summer when I was 23 (1995). I am from Atlanta, so the big mountains in the park really were giants to me. I had been rock climbing up to several pitches around the park for several weeks before I did Half Dome. When I got to the cables I really had to "suck it up" and make myself go to the top. It was hard even though I had been on rope at least a couple of hundred feet up several times before Half Dome. The cables are scary no matter what. I guess there are a few people that don't get scared, but for most of us beating the fear is one of the major accomplishments of climbs like Whitney and Half Dome.
Oh yeah, all of you that live in California are really lucky to have some of the best outdoor adventures within a few hours of your home. I love Georgia and our mountains, they are beautiful, but don't present the challenges that you have so close. I have to plan for months and spend hundreds on plane tickets, etc. to get to your incredible climbs. Anyone want to adopt me and my wife?
Scott
<img src="http://www.garyscottthompson.com/ScottHalfDome.jpg"/>

I used to live in June Lake, so I was only 90 mins. from the Valley Floor when there was no traffic on 120. So I hiked Half Dome about 7 times in 3 years. Have to fess up that I never could get up the guts to do the cables. I've got a fear of heights and am not strong in my upper body and just getting my hands on the cables and looking up made me shake and sweat. Everyone knows accidents happen, you fall while hiking, you lose your step and all the rest. I know that if you fall from the cables you will die, there's no other way. I just never could take that risk. Is it worth it to risk your life to climb up there? For me I decided the answer was no and admired everyone where the answer was yes. The view from Cloud's Rest is better, so is the view from above Cathedral Lake, on your way to Sunrise camp.

I admire and respect everyone who can do the cables. To me, it looks little different that rock climbing up El Capitan, and those people have nerves of steel.

Quoting David:
"I've seen people clipped into one of the cables with a sling and biners, but this is not a safe practice..."
True but neither is climbing.

"Imagine if you fell 20 feet before your biner caught at a post on a 2 foot sling."
Sounds painful.

"Your fall factor is close to 5 on a static system."
Fall factor Five! Alert the captain.

"The biners or slings will certainly break!"
Maybe. Assuming a vertical fall of 20 feet onto this post with no friction slowing you down it would, but that rock ain't anywhere near vertical. You would skid the whole way down. (Besides, based on how busy it sounds right now, you'd hit 5 or 6 people on the way down.) At the time, I was more concerned the cable would burn through the biner before I hit the anchor.

"They aren't designed to absorb energy like a dynamic climbing rope, especially with such an extreme fall factor."
You assume I was using standard climbing sling and a standard biner, not the special friction absorbing device I recently purchased for doing Via Ferratas in Europe. (All right, all right so I was.)

"Doing what you and others describe simply provides a false sense of security."
So does a car alarm and a bike lock. But people still buy them because every now and then they help out. People ascending the headwall on Denali use crampons, ice-ax, a rope between team members, and still clip into the fixed line with an ascender and another biner on a sling. Why don't you take your crusade up there and tell all those people to just skip the biner on a sling since it won't do any good anyway.

The fact is that there are two 1.5 inch thick cables going up the side of this less than vertical cliff. If you don't let go of them, they won't let go of you, even if your feet slip.

If I had wanted to be completely safe, I would have rappelled from anchor to anchor all the way down the cable system. But since I felt pretty safe batmanning down the cable, and I had added one small safety measure, we just did it. I stand by my previous recommendations.

P.S. I've been trying to post a picture of the above mentioned descent, but I can't figure out how to paste a picture into this thing. Can anyone help me out?

I beg to differ. Those cables are about 1/2" diameter, not 1.5 inch. Regardless, that's way more strength than required. What *****s me out are the places where the cable has fatigued and broken, and the rangers have spliced them back together. I gotta believe that it is the result of people trying to belay off the cable. Bottom line: If you've got to clip into the cable, you don't belong up there. Close your eyes if you need to, trust your legs to do the work and stop wearing out the cable!

The first time I tried Half Dome, I refused to go up the cables, I was so intimidated. But I've been up twice since then and, in spite of knees shaking with the fear of heights and scared to death to look down , I made it to the top.

Oddly enough, though, coming down was GREAT!! I went down the outside (but holding on to the cables) to get out of the way of the uphill traffic... and just kinda skipped down! It was so FUN!!! Go figure.

Oh... and I forgot to post that on my trip to Half dome two months ago when I was debating on whether to leave my gloves or not.... I did leave my gloves BUT I brought down three really disgusting pairs that REALLY needed to be thrown away. As I waited for my sister to come down, I watched the other people going up, and with the exception of a group of boy scouts, all the other people did take gloves from the pile.

Desparado,
A few ways to post a pic on this page when you don't have yahoo photo or clubphoto. Do you have a web page? Once when I did this I stored the pic on my web server by FTPing it over. Then I said something like this: Here is the picture of me standing on top of Mt. Unobtainable img src="http://home.socal.rr.com/rundirt/mtun.jpg"width=640" Put a < before img with no space. I had to leave it off or it would show the picture of me on Mt. Unobtainable in this post. Feel free to contact me using my listed contact. You are welcome to store on my web page or I can give you another suggestion. There are other ways to go about this.

I just returned from Yosemite and wanted to share my experience on Half Dome this last Tuesday. It was a great help to read previous posts as they prepared me for the hike.

Because I was under a time constraint of having to leaving Yosemite Valley by noon and thunderstorms were forecast for morning, I left the trailhead at 2:00 AM and hiked by headlamp to the bottom of the cables. It took my 3 1/2 hours to get to the cables via the Mist Trail -very interesting in the dark. Because it was early, I was the only person on the cables up and down so it took only 15 minutes to ascend the final section. Immediately upon summitting, it started to rain and the lightning that had been in the distance all morning seemed closer. Outta there! I descended down the cables in the rain wand the cables and granite were becoming wet. I was wearing NB 905's which are slick and I had to rely on the cables to keep from falling. The most difficult part for me was the section from the cables over to the granite steps as there were rocks that were very slippery. I agree with a previous post that the granite steps section is very tricky to follow. Halfway down I heard a loud crack of lightning from the Dome and hoped no one was having trouble on the summit. The rain continued through my entire descent so I didn't stop much and completed the hike RT in less than 7 hours. I hiked Whitney earlier in the month and Half Dome was a breeze compared to Whitney mainly because the altitute (8800 ft summit vs. 14,497 ft summit). The one thing I wasn't aware of with Half Dome was that the trail is steep and difficult to follow in the dark! I would not recommend starting as early as I did as there are many parts that are difficult to follow and I missed some incredible views of the Falls on the way up!

I was 13 when I climbed Half Dome. My dad went with me, but his knees wouldn't allow him to continue up the cables. I went along, and I think the only thing that provided the impetus for me to make it was my lack of fear. I had no concept of "falling off" or "dying" at 13. Now that I look back on it, though, there is one similarity to Whitney that was somewhat discouraging. When you reach the cables (much like when you turn that corner near Mt. Muir and see the little summit hut in the distance), it seems like you'll never get there. Psychologically, the distance and the dramatic appearance of the increase in elevation can be really discouraging. On Whitney, I never thought I'd make it -- I almost gave up simply because it was like eating a bowl of oatmeal; you just keep eating but it never gets smaller. That is a hard thing to digest (no pun intended), and it can be very distracting to your climb. If you just concentrate on summitting HD, your adrenaline will surely carry you as far as you need to go. If you have to, hum a song in your head (or out loud) to distract you. Heck, I've even talked to myself just to keep my mind off of my distress! Don't worry...you'll do it eventually. You just have to do it!

True--If you need to clip in, you probably don't belong up there. I would submit that the frayed cables are not however, due to a few people running a biner over them, but rather due to the fact that hundreds of people are using them every summer and then they're left up there all winter to weather, rubbing on the granite. So stop using the cable for a handhold people. You're wearing it out! (That was tongue-in-cheek.)

P.S. Okay, so they're probably closer to 1/2 in ch than 1.5 inch. Mia Culpa.

Little did we know that when we hiked to the top of Half Dome on Saturday (9/20) that the park would be having a “Fee Free” day in honor of National Public Lands Day. Fortunately our group left just before 6AM and made it to the top at around 11:30 AM. We saw a different situation going down just after 12:30 PM. Not only were the cables gridlocked going up, but there also were people standing in line for the cables all the way across the final saddle! We also ran into more and more people that were still going up as we walked down the steps of the side knoll.

This time I counted 70 pole pairs on the cables and cued people going up how far away from the top. It was my sixth time up.