climber.me

Snake Dike (5.7R). Perhaps it should be renamed Snake Dhike. The ‘H’ is most definitely not silent.

On June 7, 2008 Maria and I woke up at 3:45am in the Upper Pines campground after a nice 4 hour nap and were hiking by 4:15am. It was dark as hell until a little after 5 and doing the Mist Trail in the cool early morning was not the most enjoyable experience. But we made it up there and then past Nevada falls to the turn off to the base of the climb. Luckily we found the turn off easily. Like the SuperTopo saysonce you pass Libery Cap, about 3/4 of a mile past Nevada falls a climbers trail heads off left from the main trail. Just keep an eye out for feint footsteps heading up the short hill. Once you’re over the hill the trail becomes more defined past Lost Lake until you get near the slabs. We followed the base of the slabs up to the right until we found a decent 4th class traverses up to the left and found a trail up the sandy slope to the base of the climb. It was 8:15am when we got to the base and there was only one party ahead of us. Within 20 minutes we were climbing and within 30 minutes there were 4 other parties behind us, with more to arrive soon after. My only advice is suck it up and get to the base early!

The climb

Me looking frumpy at the base

The first pitch starts with no protection on 4th class rock for about 60 feet. Then you place a single smallish cam in a crack, down climb 10 feet and traverse left for about fifteen through 5.7 friction until your next placement. For me, this was the sketchiest, but not most difficult part of the climb. Once you’re through that the rest of the pitch is easy to the bolts. We linked the second pitch and part of the third through the next two 5.7 parts of the climb. The hardest part for me was the last 5.7 traversing friction move up and left past a bolt. I’m glad I had recently followed on Crest Jewel, but it was still psychologically challenging being on lead. I set up a belay once I reached the bolts at the start of the dike. At this point you’re past the toughest sections on the route, but have to be ready for extreme runout on easy terran for the rest of the climb. The dike is really, really awesome. Great features always give you a hold when you need it and with 1 to 2 bolts per pitch you can just cruise in a good rhythm. Since we belayed at the start of the dike instead of climbing up, we were slightly off the normal belay route and 2 pitches up I reached the end of the rope with the anchors about 15 feet up. Luckily, Maria and I had done this before while linking pitches on Yankee Clipper in El Potrero Chico, so she quickly broke down the belay and we started simul-climbing for 15 feet with 2 or so pieces of protection between us. The rest of the climb was easy and fun and I got the pleasure of leading the whole climb. I guess this makes up for me following all of Crest Jewel + Royal Arches (thanks Nathan!).

The end of the climb isn’t described so well in the SuperTopo book. The topo makes it look like you should head up and right after the last pitch, but you need to be careful to not go too far to the right. We ended up setting up a few more marginal belays after the last pitch in the topo to make sure we were headed in the right direction. There’s a steep vertical section of rock that you’ll see and you need to go to the left around that. After that we saw a tree and headed towards that. It’s hard to judge distance in the sea of granite; when we saw the tree i figured it was about 150 feet away, but it turned out to be twice that. From there we meandered up, tied together short. Just pick the lowest angle route you can find and follow that for about twenty minutes to half an hour. Walking up the rest of half dome is otherworldly and a cool experience on its own.

The top

When we reached the top, it was about 2:30pm. We called our friends who had started hiking up the Half Dome trail about an hour after us and they had just reached the top of the cables. Talk about great timing! We all hung out at the top for an hour or so before trudging down the 8.5 miles back to the campground. A few big wallers topped out on the Northwest Face while we were up there and of course a thousand other people too. Somehow a marmot also made it up there. The question is, did he take the cables or the dike route?

The Marmot: lost or cornering the Food Scraps Market at the top of Half Dome?

The descent

This part I could have done without, but it’s all part of the snake dhike extravaganza. The cables were nasty congested and that part alone took us about 45 minutes. The early start was getting to us, but another snickers or two did us good and we kept our pace up. We got back to the campground at 7:30 and were at Degnan’s Pizza Loft by 8. Another successful day!

On Saturday May 31 this year, Nathan and I woke up at the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning (after going to bed at midnight) and made the 45 minute drive from Hardin Flat to Yosemite Valley. Parking at the Ahwahnee hotel, we geared up, taking a light trad rack and each with a small backpack full of windbreakers, 4 king-size snickers bars, fruit rollups, string cheese and water. One 60m rope meant lightness but no retreating. We did the quick approach and started climbing just as it started getting light at 5:30am. The first pitch starts with a slick angled chimney and was my first chimney experience. Not bad, just a full body experience!

Nathan leading up the 5.6 chimney on pitch 1

We were simulclimbing nearly everything, so after the first pitch things just kept going. It’s easy climbing with short sections of 5.6 or 5.7 moves. At one point, in another groovy chimney section the nozzle of my camelbak slid off and water started gushing out of it and all over the wall and me. I put the tube in my mouth, but the water kept coming! Nathan was fully extended at the other end of the rope, so we both had to downclimb about 10 feet so I could retrieve the nozzle. Luckily it hadn’t dropped any farther. The simul -climbing made things a little more interesting there.

After about 6 pitches worth, we hit a stellar 5.6 crack that went for 30-45 feet. Definitely one of the highlights of Royal Arches. The other memorable part was, of course, the pendulum to skip the 10b traverse move.

Looking past the pendulum. You swing and mantle the flake in the middle bottom.

We made it up to the top of Royal arches at 8am, after only 2.5 hours! Both of us were surprised that we got through it so fast - belays are sloooowww. The early start was key, as we didn’t see anyone else on the route, but we heard later that there were at least 6-10 parties on it.

Looking down from the top of Royal Arches.

However, we weren’t through the adventure. We still had to do Crest Jewel, a 5-star 10a slab climb up to the top of North Dome. That, and the approach to the start of Crest Jewel from Royal Arches. My only advice is don’t turn left towards the dome too early. We ended up crawling through the thickest manzanita, only to realize that we had gone too high.

Manzanita Hell!

Finally, we got to the start of the climb and it was 11. There was a party climbing up the 10d direct start, so we waited for them to cruise by (impressive) and Nathan started leading out. I should mention that I haven’t done much slab climbing. Starting on Crest Jewel, even on top rope was a continuous adventure. The runouts were often long and traversing on 5.8 terrain. At one point, Nathan realized he had clipped into an old bolt (marked in the ST guide) and was 30 feet off route. He kept it together and instead of down climbing to get back on route, he did a heady traverse up and left to the anchors, not able to clip any more bolts. Wowsa.

Nathan running it out

We did Crest Jewel in 9 pitches and got to the top at 4:30. Then it was only a short hike down to the North Dome Gully trail. We found the start of the trail easily and didn’t have any problems staying on the trail, but it was very exposed, especially at the 4th class traverse with a cliff below you. It’s a good idea to do this trail with a light pack and get to know it before you jump on Washington Column and come down with a haul bag and heavy rack.

At 7pm we made it to the valley floor and nearly bumped into a baby bear cub and mama bear. They weren’t more than 100 feet away from us and luckily they just lumbered off into the woods. Making a b-line for Degnan’s Pizza Loft, we ate well and talked about the climb. This day was full of firsts for me - first pendulum, first simul-climbing, first chimney - awesome.

The next day we took it easier. I led pitch 1 of Jamcrack (5.7); Nathan led pitch 2 (5.9). Then I led Churchbowl Lieback (5.8) and Nathan led Highway Star (5.10a). Thoroughly spent, we headed back to the city after one of my favorite climbing weekends ever.