Alex Honnold is certainly an experienced voice when it comes to Yosemite. Photos: Reel Rock//Screenshot (L), Alex Rich//Unsplash (R)
I’ve hiked Half Dome four times. I consider myself an experienced hiker, but even so, every time I complete the cable section I breathe a huge sigh of relief. The final 400-foot climb to the top is sketchy, crowded, slick, and exposed. There’s not much room for error.
The conversation around the safety and management of Half Dome hit the news cycle again this summer when, sadly, Grace Rohloff, a 20-year-old hiker, fell off the cables to her death when rain made the surfaces precariously wet. Grace’s father, Jonathan Rohloff, who witnessed his daughter fall, told SFGate, “It is unnecessarily dangerous up there. It’s not going to bring my daughter back, but I would like to strongly advocate for a safer way to get to the top of Half Dome.”
Half Dome’s safety became such a hot topic that even world-renowned climber and star of the film Free Solo, Alex Honnold, added his two cents. When speaking to Outside, Honnold advocated to leave the cable section open as is.
“People have totally transformative experiences hiking Half Dome,” said Honnold. “They propose up there, they spread ashes up there. You can pass people more easily (when walking on the outside of the cables) and the rock is actually a lot more textured on the outside because fewer people have walked on it.”
“Just to pick up your permit, you have to go through a safety briefing,” Honnold added. “There are signs starting at the trailhead saying things like ‘this is dangerous and you could die,’ and (there’s) even a ranger present at the subdome checking permits.”
In order to fully understand what Honnold and Rohloff are talking about, you need to understand Half Dome. As one of the iconic granite dome features in Yosemite National Park, people flock from all over the world to get the incredible views at the top. But the dome is far too steep to hike, so in 1920 the first iteration of a cable system was installed to aid hikers.
As it currently stands, two metal poles are placed in drilled holes roughly three feet apart, repeated at about six-foot intervals. Two-by-four planks of wood run across the poles to create perpendicular footholds and a cable runs through the top of each pole creating parallel handholds. Depending on the season, the cables are generally installed around the end of May and taken down for the winter in October.
In response to overcrowding, a lottery permit system was put in place in 2010 to access the cables. Two-hundred and twenty-five people are allowed to summit each day to mitigate crowds, which the park says reached as many as 1,200 per day before the system was enacted.
Due to this cable section, Half Dome could be the most dangerous hike in the state. Since 1948, at least 15 people have died on the cables. Rohloff is the seventh hiker to perish in wet conditions since 2006.
Interestingly, one study found that limiting the crowds via permits hasn’t made the trail safer. It’s become more dangerous. Looking at a sample of hikers from 2005 to 2015 – the five years before and after the permit system was put in place – it was found that SAR incidents, victims, fatalities, and costs above Little Yosemite Valley (the last section of the Half Dome hike) did not decrease despite a decrease in hikers. The report hypothesizes this could be due to hikers taking increased risks because they feel pressured to make the most of their lottery won permits.
In my experience, I found other people to be the most dangerous part of the cable section. Too many inexperienced hikers, often with inadequate clothing, clogged up the lane. (I vividly remember an entire church group from Utah doing the hike together and backing up the cables.) I had to squeeze by hikers and share small footholds with several people at a time. And even though the permits limit the number of daily hikers to 225, most of those hikers are day hikers who start from the trailhead around sunrise, thus the vast majority hit the cables at the same time in the late morning.
Additionally, the granite is so well-trodden that it’s become smooth. It no longer provides that typically grippy granite texture. You rely heavily on your arm strength to take the weight off your feet in the slippery parts. As Honnold mentioned, the outside of the cables is much more grippy, but then you lose the security of handholds on both sides.
All that said, I’ve traveled abroad and seen other solutions to summiting similar granite domes. In Colombia and Sri Lanka, for example, they constructed elaborate staircases on the side of the mountains to make it so grandma and grandpa could walk to the top. As you can imagine, it attracts hordes of tourists. In my opinion, these staircases are eyesores and ruin the natural beauty.
A more realistic solution – if the rules were to change – would be to require a harness with carabiners to clip in at every section of cable between poles. I’ve seen people successfully using this technique. In theory, this would remove any risk of falling, but it would exacerbate the crowding and slow-hiker issues.
I think the real solution lies in our collective mindset. Half Dome is viewed as a bucket list item for anyone and everyone who visits California. It doesn’t need to be glorified as a “must-do” activity. There are so many incredible peaks in the Sierra Nevada, many of which are much easier and less technical. Just because you’re in Yosemite, you don’t need to push your skills to say you summited Half Dome. For example, Sentinel Dome, a short and easy hike, provides equally marvelous views of Yosemite Valley.
Honnold said in his Outside interview that “you can never make the mountains completely safe.” He’s right. There is a risk we accept when we hike. I think the way to move forward after this unfortunate incident is to underline that inherent danger and encourage people to analyze where their correct level of risk exposure lies. The cables should remain for those who want the experience.
