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Post by johntpenca on Sept 7, 2019 11:05:05 GMT -8
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Hungry Jack
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Post by Hungry Jack on Sept 7, 2019 20:27:41 GMT -8
Is a slip on that section pretty much always fatal?
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zeke
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Post by zeke on Sept 8, 2019 1:39:59 GMT -8
Yes. If one loses a grip on the cables, the subsequent fall is fatal nearly every time. I've only read of one person who managed to stop or self arrest on that slope.
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Post by johntpenca on Sept 8, 2019 7:15:58 GMT -8
I've only read of one person who managed to stop or self arrest on that slope. Correct. I recall one incident in which a person was fortunate to land on a ledge after a long fall and survived. A fall on the cables typically entails a 500-600 foot drop. Before the daily quota was invoked (not my photo):  |
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echo
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Post by echo on Sept 8, 2019 10:32:11 GMT -8
Yikes! That picture looks like falling would be like bowling.
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zeke
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Post by zeke on Sept 8, 2019 10:48:24 GMT -8
The only time I climbed Half Dome was in the Fall of 2007, and it looked like this for us.   We got a pre-dawn start from the Valley, and were on top before lunch. Met the crowd as we descended. |
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Post by johntpenca on Sept 8, 2019 10:56:12 GMT -8
Yikes! That picture looks like falling would be like bowling. That pic I posted is atypically crowded. From what I understand a more typical day looks like zeke's 2nd pic. A lot of climbers think the cables should either be removed entirely or a second system added; one for those going up and another for those going down. |
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Post by stanley on Sept 8, 2019 11:00:01 GMT -8
I climbed the cables a long time ago (1982). Didn't know they existed and never heard of half dome. Bp'ed in from Tenaya Lakes, camped near the base and wondered where all those people were going.
Still it seems pretty hard to fall. Climbing up there were few people. It was Saturday of Labor Day weekend. Coming back down, the crowds has built up But, nothing like that picture.
Zeke's picture is more like my experience.
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Post by JRinGeorgia on Sept 9, 2019 3:30:58 GMT -8
I don't know that a slip on the cables is almost always fatal. If someone is outside the cables and slips, then yes. If they are coming down the cables facing forward at a reckless pace, then yes. But a fall inside the cables, the poles that support the cables and the cross-planks against the granite can slow a person down, give them something to grab and/or bump up against. Not to mention the other people.
There have been a handful of fatalities on HD over the last decade. While all tragic, just look at the photos and imagine how likely it is to slip and how many people every year are on the cables, then do the math. If every slip was fatal then it seems there would be way, way more fatalities.
Best time to go up the cables is early in the morning, haul water for a dry camp and sleep near the base of the subdome. Cables are nearly empty, and you have breathing room while up on top. The best way to descend the cables is facing backwards.
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jazzmom
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Post by jazzmom on Sept 9, 2019 7:12:03 GMT -8
My son and I climbed it in 2010, he was 11 at the time. We'd backpacked down from Tuolumne and spent the night before at Little Yosemite Valley, got up at dawn. I remember it being 3-4 miles from LYV. Pretty much had the cables to ourselves but, while not "scary", it was steeper and the rock surface slipperier than I'd imagined. We met a trio of women at Merced Lake who had met on HD a few years previous and had survived a rainstorm together, clinging to the cables. They'd bonded and had been backpacking together in Yosemite ever since. They said it was the most terrifying thing any of them had ever experienced -- made me promise that I wouldn't take my son if there was any forecast of rain that day. A few more people on the way back down but still negotiable. The bottlenecks were when someone would get scared and sort of freeze in one spot. (Happens on Angel's Landing in Zion, too.) Then those people in a hurry would insist on passing them on the outside of the cables. Not much to stop you if you fall outside of the cables. And for those of us who are short, it seemed like a fall inside the cables would result in sliding out and under the cable... I remember my son and I saying to each other, whatever happens, don't let go of the cable...   |
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Post by Lamebeaver on Sept 10, 2019 17:45:27 GMT -8
I climbed the cables a long time ago (1982). Must have been a lot harder to get a tourist visa from Russia back then, or were you doing clandestine work for the KGB back in the good ole days? |
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