I climbed Snake Dike at Yosemite! ...? Doesn't quite have the ring of "I climbed El Capitan," does it? But you'd have to reincarnate me as someone else before I'd attempt the latter, so that's pretty much out. Snake Dike, for those of you who are not Yosemite buffs, is a 5.7 R climbing route up the curving side of Half Dome (but remember - this is a Yosemite 5.7). And, yes, there is a climbing route up the sheer face of Half Dome. (And, no, that's not happening either.)

In fact, I was absolutely sure that Snake Dike was NOT in my future after I read the interesting little description of the route. It starts out "The six mile approach is extremely strenuous..." (and they forgot the extra mile hike to get to the trailhead) and finishes up "Allow 3-4 hours for the nine mile descent..." (still forgot the extra mile hike to get back to camp from the trailhead). Add up all those numbers and it comes out to 17 miles. And that's just getting there and back again. That's not even counting the climb, which happens to be 8 full pitches. Part of the climbing description explains: "On a typical runout pitch, you will climb as much as 75 feet without any protection." Oh good. I hate to waste time clipping bolts and looking for cracks when I could just be climbing and holding on for dear life.

Other members of our little Yosemite group had taken on the challenge of Snake Dike over the ensuing week, and most of them came back looking like something the cat wouldn't bother to drag in. Seventeen miles? Eight pitches with 75-foot runouts? Bushwacking to the base? And, just to make it interesting, over 5,000 feet of gain and loss. All in one day. You're kidding, right?

You need to understand that I am a mileage wimp. When a hike or scramble (and especially a climb) gets above 13 miles I find I am suddenly overdue for an oil change and garden weeding that weekend. Needless to say, seventeen miles, plus 5,000 feet of gain, plus several additional hours of technical climbing was not at the top of my calendar. So I was firmly in the "no way" category until Thursday. (After all - am I the kind of person that is dumb enough to do all that mileage and gain, just to say I climbed Half Dome? OK - don't answer that.) But eventually the lure of climbing Half Dome, combined with my inability to keep out of trouble, did its evil work. By Thursday afternoon I found myself, to my horror, signing up for the climb.

So four of us, (Gene, Maria, Doug and myself), dragged out our gear and packed up early, to be ready for the 4:00 a.m. wake up call. But let's face it; you're never ready for anything, apart from sleep, at 4:00 a.m. Stumbling around the campsite with our headlamps making tiny circles of feeble light in the stygian darkness surrounding us, we managed to get fed and going by 5:00 am.

Humping along the dark road, we eventually crossed the river and came to the turnoff for the trailhead. Then came an even murkier hike up through the wooded path, which wound ever higher, up through scree fields and boulders that were more sensed than seen in the blackness. We filled our water bottles at a stone fountain about 1.5 miles from the trailhead. Now that we were saddled with 3 extra liters, the trail turned into a giant stone staircase, charging precipitously up the side of a deep, narrow gorge. There were stairs, stairs, and more stairs (with a few more stairs thrown in) climbing past two waterfalls to a windy pass. Some unknown time later, we crawled over the saddle of the pass and, instead of descending, turned off onto a climber's trail (read deer trail) that took us higher still over the crown of a stone slab hill.

From the top of the hill we could look out over a valley below us and across to the sheer sides of Half Dome rising out of the morning mists. It still looked depressingly far away. Plunging down the far side of the hill, we immediately lost the trail, and kept finding and losing it sporadically after that. Several false turns and sometime later, we stumbled onto the shores of a dry lake. From its top end it was a straight shot to the base of our climb! Of course, the straight shot was straight up - so we zigged and zagged our way to reach a traverse with stunning views down the plunging cliffs between our toes. (I only panicked once or twice.) At last we found our way to the base of the climb, five hours after leaving camp. (This would be the 3-4 hour approach in the guide book.)

At the base we found three Italian climbers on the route ahead of us. While we were getting our gear together for the climb, two other climbing parties showed up: an Aussie gent with his Kiwi girlfriend (A/K), and two young Polish fellows with scanty English. It was turning into quite the international climbing fest. Once the Italians got out of the way Gene started up the route. Gene and Maria were on one rope, Doug and I on the other. I swung leads with Doug, but a massive bottleneck was forming, with the English speakers right on our tail and the Poles hovering impatiently behind them.

	“I was so focused on finding relief for my footsies that I hardly noticed the 75-foot runouts...”

Somewhere around the third pitch the Poles couldn't contain themselves any longer. They jackrabbited around the A/K team and Doug, and swarmed over the belay station I was sharing with Maria. She gave them a dressing down about it, but the rot had set in. Not to be left behind, the A/K pair decided they could simul-climb around us, so each belay station became a massive snarl of people, ropes, anchors and belays, with climbing commands in various languages mingling into an indecipherable mess. Eventually, the other groups moved on by, but the extra wait time to let them pass meant that our feet were screaming for mercy. No flat places to stand - no rest for the poor Achilles tendons! On the bright side, I was so focused on finding relief for my footsies that I hardly noticed the 75-foot runouts at all. When we eventually hit the end of the last pitch, I could hardly hobble. I performed the last 800-foot gain to the top in a sideways duck-waddle. The fierce, chilly wind and threatening skies at the summit did not alter my relief in being vertical on a horizontal again. Thank God: all downhill from here!

After a short rest and photo op, we headed over to the far side where there was a cable route set up for the tourists. I saw the beginning of the pole-strung cables curve over the edge and disappear. No - it couldn't be that steep - could it? Hundreds of tourists a day used this! There had to be more! But there was no more. A closer examination of the edge proved that it did indeed plunge down 5th class rock that was at least as steep as what we had climbed on the other side. You were supposed to hold the cables on either side for safety. Insanity! The cables were held four feet off the ground. One slip on the polished, 50 degree rock and you would shoot out under the cables and into the pages of "Accidents in North American Mountaineering". No way was I doing this unprotected. I clipped a doubled runner into my harness and clipped the other end onto one of the cables. I had to clip around each pole, but I didn't care. The tourists could be as suicidal as they wanted - I was going to be protected. Doug and Maria were of the same mind, so only Gene downclimbed without clipping in.

Many of hundreds of feet lower, we finished the cable route. It was late in the afternoon, the shadows were creeping in, and we had nine (or 10) miles to go. But get this: there were more tourists going up the trail to the cables - with no food, little water, T-shirts and shorts, no lights, and no other gear. It was going to get dark in an hour or two. What the hell were they thinking? Certifiable - every last one. We, on the other hand, boogied on out of there as fast as we could go. Still hit pitch dark somewhere on the endless stairs, but we did manage to catch the local circuit bus at the road and thus saved ourselves the final mile to camp.

So we arrived: filthy, exhausted, starving, and triumphant. Snake Dike and Half Dome were history! Time for a shower, beer and pizza (in that order). Doug and I were planning some climbs at the base of El Cap the next day but (wouldn't you know it) it started raining, so we were forced to lounge around and eat all day instead. Bummer! Ah, well - I'm sure I can find some other trouble to get into...