Half Dome in a Half Day

How to climb Half Dome (RNWF) in a half day? The secret, according to Kibum, is to use bikes.

part 1: http://kr.blog.yahoo.com/lasan911/344

part 2: http://kr.blog.yahoo.com/lasan911/343

Splits:
Dead Slabs: 1h 20min
Regular Northwest route: 4h
Valley-to-valley: 8h.
Car-to-car: 9h 20min, including swimming in the river.







Ok, how do you really climb the Regular route in half day? We simul-climbed (simultaneous) 2/3 of the climb, and used a bit of short-fixing for the upper, harder pitches.


Beta

The first crux to Regular Northwest route of HD is the 3000 ft Death Slab approach. It is an R-rated hike that involves difficult route-finding, exposed scrambling and pulling on fixed, and sometimes funky ropes to get over steep vertical sections. I like this hike. It is remote, quiet and serious, like scrambling in the High Sierra. So close to all the commotion in the Valley, yet isolated. My fastest time on the Death Slabs is 1h 20min, but if its your first time you should expect about 3h. If you are going for the car-to-car ascent I recommend rehearsing the hike first. Its fun, and no need for permit.

The Climbing

For efficient simul-climbing shorter ropes are better. I use 50m, 9.2mm diameter with a gri-gri. 50m rope length works well even if you are not simuling! First 10 pitches are easy, blocky with short hard sections and few section of aid, including bolts and a pendulum. Route finding is a bit tricky there. The key is to be patient and not start the traverse to the right early. Kibum and I end the first simul pitch at the big ledge before the chimneys.
The next big simul-pitch ends at Big Sandy ledge. I like this section better because the free climbing is more secure and the movement is faster.
From Big Sandy on I take the lead and make four long pitches to the top. Two for the Zig-Zags, one for Thank God Ledge and one for the bolted face. The key for speed is to use as much free climbing as possible, about 90%. To motivate myself to climb free and fast I take only a single aider (for the whole climb) Kibum cleans with jumars there to save time.

The Rack

We use singles in the hand size, and doubles of finger size and smaller. Lots of biners and slings. There is plenty of fixed junk. I use no nuts. One 50m, 9.2 mm rope. Two fifis, gri-gris, two jumars, one ushba basic placed at the beginning of the chimneys to protect the leader from a fall of the second on the harder pitch bellow. One Gatorade bottle each and hadfull of GUs.


The Other Half


If someone asks how many times you have done a climb, and you have to stop and think about it, you know--it is a few times too many. It happens to me all the time. I climb the same climbs again, and again. Boring?
Not only do I do the same climbs, but I tend to do them with the same partners...

Konstantin on Thank God Ledge

Half Dome. I have done it 6 times via the regular northwest route, aka Robins route. 3 times with the unbelievable Kibum, 2 times with my Bulgarian climbing brother Konstantin, and once with Bulgarian ski-mountaineering champion Ivona. I've always done it in-a-day, and once we did in-a-night with Kibum, after climbing The Nose in the day. The big valley linkup.
It seems the more I climb it the more I enjoy it. Even the hike! It felt horrible the first time I was on it. Now? I look forward for the hike as part of the fun.
The climbing features the best ledge traverse ever, Thank God Ledge. And the best view of Yosemite Valley. The Zig-Zags offer some amazing free climbing. The chymneys are super fun, and that first section before the traverse could be fun if done in one long pitch (simul climbing). A must do.