Snakedike is a very popular climbing route in the Yosemite area. Popular because the climb allows you to access the top of Half Dome without a permit, and I had basically given up over the years on trying to get one. But the climb is also popular because it has crazy long runouts, where no protection is possible for long stretches. At 5.7R the climbing is not terribly difficult, with maybe one or two moves that are a little spicy, but it starts to get heady when you have runouts that range from 30 to 100 feet. The runouts occur along a ‘dike’, or seam of a heavily featured strip of granite that meanders up to the top of Half Dome like a snake. Thankfully, the climbing up these runouts on the dike is not technically hard to climb, but a slip and fall would absolutely ruin your day. The way this climb came about was a bit unusual. My buddy Jason was hiking the Jon Muir Trail NOBO, so he would be ending the hike by coming down the Mist Trail into the valley. He had always wanted to climb Snake Dike and thought that climbing it while he ended his JMT hike would be a perfect opportunity. And since I had never summited Half Dome and felt my climbing ability was good enough, I decided to carry all our climbing gear up the Mist Trail early morning and meet up with Jason at the turn off toward Snake Dike. We were communicating during the days leading up to Jason finishing and we were able to time it right. I met up with Jason on the trail, he had come down to meet me, thinking that I had perhaps turned off onto an alternate approach, and then we made our way to the climb. The climb itself was fairly uneventful, but definitely fun and definitely a little spicy. We swapped leads, so we were both able to lead some of the runouts. We made it to the top, where Erika, Jason’s girlfriend (now wife) also timed her approach and got to the top not long before us (I guess last minute walk up permits are the way to go. But I think our climb up is hard to beat). The views were spectacular. The climb down along the cables also required a bit of care. I can see how mishaps can happen there. We relaxed for a while at Jason’s camp then I made my way back down the Mist Trail and back to my car, for I did not have an overnight permit 🙁
