One Best Hike: Yosemite's Half Dome. Rick Deutsch
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import a strange and inexpressive one; that the name of the tribe who had occupied it, would be more appropriate than any I had heard suggested.” I then proposed “that we give the valley the name of Yo-sem-i-ty, as it was suggestive, euphonious, and certainly American; that by so doing, the name of the tribe of Indians which we met leaving their homes in this valley, perhaps never to return, would be perpetuated.”
Yosemite was charted by the U.S. Geologic Survey of California in 1863. Early visitors originally called Half Dome “South Dome” because they felt it balanced North Dome across the valley. Over the years, it has been called Cleft Rock, the Rock of Ages, and a few others that did not stick. However, Half Dome was soon the common name.
To help protect the pristine environs from commercial interests, in June 1864 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, which deeded Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees (at the southern end) to the state of California. The bill mandated that this land be used for resort and recreation “for all time.” The grant was overseen by the Yosemite Board of Commissioners, which was led by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Galen Clark was the first caretaker of the park. Note that only those two tracts of land were set aside for California to manage; the U.S. government retained the rest. John Muir arrived in 1868, and his writings influenced the country so much that, in 1890, Yosemite obtained federal protection as a national park. At that time the park was comprised only of the land not in the Yosemite Grant. Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees were left under California jurisdiction. In 1905 the legislature of California re-granted Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove back to the U.S. government. Congress accepted the state grant in 1906 and added these lands to Yosemite National Park. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 at Promontory, Utah, provided a fast way for people to get to the west, and the park continued to grow in the 1900s. Today attendance approaches 4 million visitors annually.
The Ascent of Half Dome
No one conquers Half Dome; Tissiack lets you pass.
—Rick Deutsch
Since the whites entered the valley in 1851, they dreamed of getting to the top of Half Dome. There are no indications that any Native Americans ever made it to the top. In 1869 Josiah Whitney, the chief geologist for California, looked up and said, Half Dome is “perfectly inaccessible, being probably the only one of all the prominent points about the Yosemite which never has been, and never will be, trodden by human foot.”
Many early settlers attempted to scale the 45-degree back side of Half Dome, including James Hutchings and Charles Weed in 1859. They brought Weed’s photography gear but were unable to ascend the steep mountain. In the early 1870s John Muir’s climbing buddy, expert climber George Bayley, also tried with the same result. This shows the difficulty of the task; Bayley was later the first to reach the top of Mount Starr King. Perhaps John Conway’s sons got the closest. In September 1873 Conway, who also later crafted many trails at Yosemite, had his young sons attempt the feat. Led by 9-year-old Major Conway, the lizardlike boys, as described by John Muir, scrambled barefoot up the rock and inserted steel rods into cracks to which they attached a rope. Major reached an elevation of about 300 feet above the saddle, but father John mercifully called him back when he reached a steep point where he could find no projection to attach the rope.
It was just five years after Whitney’s proclamation that George Anderson, a Scottish immigrant and former sailor, set out to top the mountain. Third-party accounts and writings years after the event have blurred the facts, but we believe Anderson quietly set up his work area in a small cabin he built nearby (the location has not been discovered but is believed to have been near a stream on the east side of the current Half Dome trail). Another cabin, where Anderson later lived at Foresta, is now on display at the Pioneer Yosemite History Center in Wawona.
George Anderson’s cabin at the foot of Half Dome; credit: The Pacific Rural Press, 1881.
Working alone, he brought his forging station up and crafted dozens of 7-inch iron eyebolts on-site.
Anderson ascended Sub Dome and began his quest using remnants of the Conway rope. He pulled himself up as far as he could safely manage. Using a method called single jacking, he held a chisel and hit it with a hammer to drill shallow holes (about 0.5 inch wide and 6 inches deep) into the granite.
He slid small wooden pegs into the holes and then hammered in the eyelet spikes. They were placed about 5 feet apart. Next, he attached a rope to the eyelet and himself in case of a fall. He had to balance himself and stand on one spike to drill the hole for the next spike above. Each spike only stuck out about 2 inches. Up and up he went, building a crude ladder with about 40 of these eyebolts. Occasionally, some irregularity in the curve of the rock or slight foothold would enable him to free-climb 20 or so feet independently of the rope. He progressed more than 450 feet up the sloping granite, belayed only by the rope he tied to the spikes.
Once his spikes and pilot rope were in place, he returned to the valley to rig up a more sturdy rope. He modified a 900-foot-long rope by knotting five strands together with a sixth strand and a 3-inch sailor’s knot a foot apart to allow a hand-over-hand traverse. This was a convenient space for future climbers to grasp as they made the ascent. Anderson used his mule to haul the new rope up to his cabin, and he carried it to the top using the spike ladder. He tied one end to the uppermost spike and slowly uncoiled and attached the rope to the eyelets with lashings. Although it was a crude device, it worked. At 3 p.m. on October 12, 1875, he erected a crude flagstaff and stood on top of Half Dome, “waving the starry flag of his adopted homeland,” according to the Mariposa Gazette.
During all this, his shoes proved to be too slick, so he tried wearing just his socks, and then he wore bags coated with pine pitch tied below his knees; however, the pine pitch was too sticky to allow progress. He then tried wearing moccasins with pine pitch only on the soles. This technique appeared to work best and enabled him to adhere firmly to the smooth granite. But again, while the pitch prevented him from slipping, it also required great effort to move his feet and almost proved fatal several times. He settled on barefoot. Think of the pain of standing on 2 inches of the spike while balancing and hitting a sledgehammer to drill another hole. Pure determination. The way to the 13-acre summit was now in place. We don’t know exactly how long all this took Anderson; estimates of a month seem reasonable. Each day he would work long and hard, and then return to his cabin area to forge new spikes and sharpen his chisel.
In the valley, Anderson’s absence had been noticed and there was concern. A search party was sent up to look for him. On the trail near Nevada Fall, Anderson encountered the men and informed them he had reached the summit. The news quickly spread.
In the days following, he escorted several English tourists up the mountain. Soon after, he took up Galen Clark and Sally Dutcher, who became the first woman to climb to the top.
John Muir is believed to have been the ninth person on Half Dome. Muir later wrote of his November 10, 1875, experience in his books The Mountains of California and The Yosemite, as well as the November 18, 1875, edition of San Francisco’s Daily Evening Bulletin, excerpted below:
On my return to the valley the other day I immediately hastened to the Dome, not only for the pure pleasure climbing in view, but to see what else I might enjoy and learn. Our first winter storm had bloomed and all the mountains were mantled in fresh snow. I was therefore a little apprehensive of danger from slipperyness of the rock, Anderson himself refusing to believe that any one could climb his rope in the condition it was then in…. I therefore pushed up alone and gained the top without the slightest difficulty. My first view was perfectly glorious. A massive