TR: Half Dome Direct NW Face (long)

Thanks, Karl....Great Story!!! Most definitely looking forward to the pictures... The Rockrat...

Karl,

Great report. Thanks for bringing back the memories. And, congrat's on sending the OW pitch! My partner, Tim, a solid 5.11 climber, moaned his way up that thing - and when I saw Skinner's rating (5.11), it seemed to make sense. Well done.

Paul Brunner

Before you buy.

karl;

Thanks for your TR. As usual you have conveyed so much more than a nitty gritty route description. Some of what you felt and what occurred to you. Reading your story, we like you! For years, that route was a Very Big Deal, like so many of Robbins' routes and of course RR himself. And basically a very unclimbed route for quite a long time.

The terrible secret of the NW face routes of Half Dome, is that they are kind of shitty rock a lot of the time, it's true and it's disappointing. We used to call it Half Dump. But the overall impression of that wall, while you are on it, is awesome and even oppressive.

Cheers, The Und

Before you buy.

Karl,

One tiny story. I remember doing the old VI 5.9 A4 El Cap Tree route back in the 1960's, and nailing up this splitter knifeblade/LA size crack in absolutely hard El Cap type granite and finding that it was expanding, and not knowing why. It actually was fairly hard climbing. Surrounded by thousands of square feet of perfect stone, it did not seem apparent that in a couple of years, most of this route would disappear into the talus! Cheers, The Unde

Before you buy.

Two comment/question(s): (1) Considering the general (not so great) condition of Half Dome - however - I think the RR is one of the best routes (in the valley) to do in a day (to do it as a multi-day ordeal looks painful). (2) How is Tis-sa-ack (sp?)? Thanks, Paul Brunner

Before you buy.

Karl Baba wrote

Oh no, you don't get that! It's a karma thing...

<snip>

This was my insight too. Until childbirth.

Thanks for the TR, Karl - great story!

Paul;

I was on Tis-sa-ack solo back in 1971, but backed off a few pitches up after I realized I had forgotten to bring a second hammer. Several weeks prior, I actually had dropped one of my two hammers soloing the Salathe,and from then on, took double hammers REALLY seriously. AT any rate from what I saw of the route, it was really exciting, somewhat perilous, pretty sophisticated and had a big wall feel all the way up. I still want to do this route, 29 years later! All the routes have major expanding problems, grainy, crappy rock a lot of the time, but hey, this particular route is right up the middle of that enormous face and awesome. There are TR's on some of the sites, I believe. The face can be very hot and oppressive, by the way. It is NOT a summer route in my opinion.

The Unde

Before you buy.