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Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

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International	(General)	(General)	(General)

Topic Date User

The Nose, El Capitan 25-May-2010 At 4:56:16 PM WM

Message

On 25/05/2010 One Day Hero wrote:
>I know some folk who are going over in a month and are keen to trundle
>up the cables on half dome. They aren't climbers but are experienced with
>scrambly hiking.

a fair percentage of people baulk at doing the cables, despite having walked 4 hours to get there. its a few years since I did them (down only), so maybe things have changed, but it is one of the most death defying things I've ever done. the rock is glassy smooth from traffic, so the cables and wooden cross pieces are critical. Hands get tired from holding the cables for a couple of hundred metres (even if protected by gloves). the wooden cross pieces are often 2-3 metres apart so you have to sketch your way between them. people behind us even dislodged one cross-piece and it bounced about 500m down the cliff/slab (rightwards in Neil's photo) into the valley. IMO any fall away from the cables would be certain death.

I am so amazed that the nanny-state US parks service lets the punters trundle up and down it.

still, stacks of walkers seem to get up and down there ok, and there doesn't seem to be many accidents, though maybe I just haven't heard about them.