Ascending the Northwest Face of Half Dome

Half Dome as seen from Glacier Point

You should know:

1. This was a fairly safe activity.
2. Looking back, this appears to be pretty ridiculous.
3. The indisputable trip leader of our voyage was my dear friend Mr. Dima. He's the man. Whatever emotions this post evokes within you, please credit 65% of them to Dima and 35% to myself. This includes (but is in no way limited to) emotions such as joy, anxiety, concern, gassiness, fatigue, etc.
4. Shoutout to ma family on this one.
5. I don't know why I did this. But I'm happy I did. For those of you who said I shouldn't do it, know that I considered and respect your opinions.

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3:45 am - I am politely awoken by a rumbling cell phone.  I'm naked beneath a down sleeping bag. No tent tonight, we camp under the stars. Only half the sky has stars tonight. Snooze.

3:55 am - I am arrogantly awoken by a beeping watch. No more snoozing. "Want some protein bar?" I ask. "No thanks," I hear.
"Want some goo?" I hear.
"No thanks."

Dima on approach. Our climb progresses up the left
of the wall in the background.

We are sleeping 20 meters from the base of the of Yosemite Valley's infamous Half Dome. The 2000' vertical northwest face towered over us, occluding the sky. Dima thinks that we can complete this 2300' climb in a single day. I am dubious. But who was I to tell him we can't?

We arrived here twelve hours earlier in the full heat of the California sun traveling first by plane, then car, then bus, and finally foot. We had approached via some scrambling/hiking on a pleasant walk up The Death Slabs. As I suspected, the hiking was non fatal. But the adventure already had me tired and scared.

We had climbed the first 400' of the face after the hike and watched the sun setting from a small ledge. Turkey sandwiches go well with sunsets. I was tired and had struggled immensely through the climbing - fatigue, dehydration, and hunger was affecting me only a few hours after leaving camp. I suppose my vigorous regiment of keyboarding, 3am bed times, and a strict diet of PBnJ has its toll.

Dima 60m out on pitch 9.
The climb continues up the prominent
chimney flake.

We left our two ropes fixed to the wall and stashed the gear on the ledge. We slept at the base and soon woke. I left my headlamp in the bag stashed up high, so I had to ascend our ropes in darkness. Ascending is easy if you do it right. I learned to do it right after about 1800', so my start was slow and tiring.  When we reached the ledge and the bag, the sky glowed from a sunrise hidden by the wall's shadow.  

The next section of climbing progresses up a long thin crack which arches to the right. This section is too hard for me to climb without help. Dima may be able to climb it, but we are emphasizing speed and safety today - so he places gear into the crack and uses it to aid his ascent. The next bit of climbing is a few grades easier, so Dima climbs it using gear only for protection.  Dima is now has 200' of rope between him and where we started. He reaches a predetermined place to stop and fixes himself to the rock using gear. He signals to me that he is secure and I ascend the rope or climb the rock until I reach him. Repeat this process 23 times, and you've climbed Half Dome.

So that's what we did.  And it was beautiful and consistently intense. There are lots of great people who thoroughly detail what the climbing is like [1] [2] [3] [4]. There is an approximate map below. I'll detail a few highlights.


The Robbin's Traverse  - You are climbing. Your goal is to go up. You reach an impassable section of wall. If only you were 15' to the side ... then you could climb the easy looking rock over that'a'way. You need to set up a pendulum! Fix the rope to a point on the wall, then sit back on the rope and lower yourself downward. Now you can swing freely on the rope. Run right, run left, run right to start swinging. As you swing, let out more rope to increase the size of the swing.  Eventually you'll reach the easier climbing and you are now free to continue upward.

The Robbin's Traverse is a section of unclimbable rock with 9 bolts in it which form a sort of ladder (called a bolt ladder). When you get to the top, you set up a pendulum to traverse right. It's an awesome playful feeling. My first pendulum. Good times.

Dima ready to start the pendulum.

The Chimneys  - Granite walls always have huge flakes of rock which hang awkwardly off the wall. Likely my favorite formations on granite are these detached flakes - like Boomstick flake in Squamish, where a flake of rock floats 1'' off a parallel face coming to a knife's edge which you walk. Sometimes these flakes get so big that you can get your whole body inside them and you can walk up the inside like you're in a chimney. Half Dome has two chimney pitches inside some big big flakes (depicted in the background above).  Dima reminds me regularly "I hate chimneys." So, I was leading the chimneys today - but I got scared and didn't do it. When Dima got up high into the squeeze section of the second narrow chimney, he called down "I don't think I can do it." Never have I heard such words from Dima's mouth. Needless to say, he did it.

Five o'clock comes too soon - With 550' left to climb we prepared to overnight on Big Sandy Ledge. It was neither big, nor sandy. We had a pad and a bivy sack for the two of us to share. I dozed on a 3' ledge using a raincoat around my legs. At 8500' elevation, I found the wind too cold for my liking. I was very happy when Dima said, "Want a jacket? I'm not using it" and gave me his coat. He was using it.

We had a good conversation and slept poorly. I dreamt.

Dima soaking in the sunset rays after a day in the shade
and before a cold night. Sponsored by Black Diamond.

Thank God Ledge - The whole route goes straight up underneath a massive overhanging rock called The Visor. The first party to climb Half Dome named the ledge "Thank God Ledge" because it allowed them to move left and out from under The Visor, passing around it instead of over it. It narrows to less than 1' with no hands. Dima walked it. My backpack kept my center of gravity behind me; so I crawled and hung off the side traversing by hand when it got too narrow. Crazy exposure.

Dima waves to the gods.

Topping Out  - The pace on the second day was more relaxed, but an encroaching storm has us both briefly scared. After thirty six hours on the rock, we were greeted by hiking tourists at the top. Most arrive after a few hours of hiking. They were happy to share some much-appreciated water. 

It felt great to be off the wall. I was ready to be done. Now it is just a matter of a long descent back to camp via chains, hiking, and then a bus. It took us a while, but the valley's scenery and waterfalls were engaging and spectacular. Time passed quickly as we dreamed of cold beer and All-Star Sausage Pizza.

*          *           *

Yellow - Approach (3 hours)

Red - Climb (36 hours)

Not Shown - Descent (5 hours)

Volume II - Beyond the sabbatical

Okay - so I'm not on sabbatical anymore. But I've missed blogging so I'm just going to start again. You object, "but it's call Kenn's Sabbatical!?" Well, get used to it. I'm not even going to change the name. Take that!!!!!

“Real rebels are rarely anything but second rate outside their rebellion; the drain of time and temper is ruinous to any other accomplishment.”

I'm back at work and back in Canada for what continues to be the most enjoyable of summers. A high percentage of the adventuring takes place at a keyboard - but I've also been out in the mountains for the majority of weekends. I wish I had blogged about it all. Since I didn't, this post offers a brief catchup. In later posts, I'll slow it down and introduce a few of the new characters.

I found a new house in Vancouver with a fabulous group of people. It's bright pink and blue near Gericho beach in Vancouver's west end. My new roommates are fabulous and have become good friends and we're currently planning a trip to Peru together in December.

I'm back at work and loving it.  My first project was to spend a couple months building a new tool which could drive a cost saving business process. I released the tool a few months ago and the response has been very positive. It's the most successful piece of software I've ever written already. Since completing the tool, I've started a new project on a different team with totally new technologies. Things have been slow to progress, but I released some infrastructure last week. I'm looking forward to seeing it take flight over the coming month. Needless to say, I've been spending a lot of time at the keyboard.

It's been a good summer in the mountains, with many fabulous moments spent with friends both new and old. Some highlights have been the ski summit of Mount Hood in Oregon, a climb up Squamish's Grand Wall (depicted left with stolen picture), a road trip down to Yosemite where we climbed Cathedral Peak and Matthes Crest, the discovery of a rope swing at Brohm Lake (depicted below), a successful climb up Angel's Crest (in stark contrast to last summer's attempt), a rainy attempt of Infinite Bliss, and a clean trad lead of Seasoned in the Sun (the climb which started it all). I also enjoyed a visit to see The President in Kelowna.

Jaymi drove in from Winnipeg for an awesome visit after returning from a year in China. Our surf trip to Tofino yeilded some sweet waves and an unexpected head-on highway collision. Everybody walked away with minor injuries except for my roommate Nate who wasn't wearing his seatbelt - he was entirely uninjured. Hopefully we can skip these dramas on next weekend's surf trip down to West Point, Washington when Drew is in town.

I'm planning to lead Grand Wall with Tim the following week. Going up this climb behind Dima in May was amazing and exhausting and epic. Avacado sandwiches with Dima on the top of the Split Pillar (depicted) is one of my fondest memories of climbing. I'm not sure if I'm ready to lead the climb and the whole idea has me on edge. I'm a climbing brute with strength and bravery but very little technique. Regardless, this is the blog post I'm looking most forward to writing.

This post reads like a list; it's not a nice read. If anybody requests to hear more about the things listed here, I can write about them - but I'm not currently planning on it. I needed to put it all down to move forward because it's the next steps that I'm looking forward to the most. I feel like there are some big journies and some major life changes coming up. All my best friends seem to be taking big steps right now - be it by taking a chance on new passions abroad, or returning home after years overseas, or quitting their job to chase a dream, or establishing deep roots in place.

As the gloom of another Vancouver winter threatens, I'm looking for my own next steps. Volume II begins.

Life in vancouver

Back home! Pretty cool. I miss blogging though.

Did a nice road trip down the Oregon coast. My friends bailed 50m from the summit of mount hood, so I stood on the peak alone before skiing from peak to base. Three consecutive weekends in squeamish resulted in a nice start to the climbing season: lunch on the top of split pillar halfway up the grand wall with dema, lunch on bellygood lunch after a morning on stairway to heaven with tim dema and new room mate nate. Solid leads on some 9s and easy 10s. No lead falls yet for the season. Really loving it.

Back to the office I'm working on a tool which drives a novel quality process for web ui testing. Pretty interesting and I had a pretty intense couple weeks at the keys. I got an iPad, and a macbook and am starting to dev for the app store. Two feet always. Nice to get the brain going again.

New house is the best show in town right now. Four roomies: performing artists, musicians, photographers - beautiful people all around. "take it leave it Tuesdays" are our weekly dinner party and jam session. Means I'm playing with the keyboard again with aspirations of harmonica.

Coming up is a 24 pitch climb in the north cascades with shann. Approach includes a river crossing which I'm super psyched about doing. I'm psyched about alpine style climbing for this summer. Going to summit baker on skis soon as part of our "mountain a month" preparation for Aconcagua in December.

Work keeps me toiling over cool problems on most days and I get outside when i can. It's not Africa, but i'm still finding myself having fun every once in a while by accident.

Written from my iPad.

Trip Overview and Fast Action Replay

I've been getting a lot of traffic now that the sabbatical is over. Thought I'd give a little summary for new comers.

Shown is my actual route through Africa.


Fast Action Replay:

• Quad biking in the Namib Desert
• Wilderness safari in Etosha National Park [2]
• Hitch-hiking through Botswana and Zimbabwe
• Walking safari in the Okavango Delta with lion
• Victoria Falls and rafting the Zambezi River
• Radiculous travel companions in Malawi
• Relaxing on Lake Malawi
• Walking and camping on the the Nyika Plateau
• Learning to white water kayak on the Nile
• Gorillas, rainforest, and volcanos in Uganda

Pictures from sorted by country and are posted here.

Entebbe, Uganda - Heading Home

Wow! I'm in Entebbe living out my last moments in Africa. My flight home to Vancouver departs in just a few hours. Lots of great times in South-Western Uganda this last week with Shann - it's been great.

I had one professional development ambition for the sabbatical - to learn F#. Epic fail. Instead, I spent the time debating over extending my sabbatical indefinitely via a letter of resignation. Usually I thought about beginning a year long trans-continental sea kayaking expedition in the Mediterranean. But it turns out that three months was just long enough and I'm really very stoked about my return to Vancouver and put my nose back to the grindstone as employee 373952 next Monday. Truth is that I miss familiar friends and faces both in Vancouver and Seattle/Bellevue.

I'm wondering what happened to all my little projects and programs while I've been in Africa? What clever co-worker has mutated my tool to fill a purpose I never intended? I wrote three new programs the week before my sabbatical - I wonder if any of them were ever used. I see that Bing's maps are now integrated with photosynth. The future is now, man.

I also can't wait to see a doctor. I have so many things wrong with me: schistosomiasis, folliculitis, hemorrhoids, weird skin rashes, tooth aches, a soar throat, etc.

Lake Mutanda, Uganda

With only two days of time left, Shann and I headed to Lake Mutanda in the very southwest corner of Uganda. It was a nice motorcycle ride to a school by the lake and then a short walk for some much needed R&R. We ate pumpkin, swam, and played cards. Chill spot.

Whilst departing for Entebbe and home, I asked Shannon to hold my things so I could go interject in the soccer game being played by some unsuspecting school children. I ran after the ball and easily stole it from the first child, but the soccer ball was made of garbage bags and the grass was extremely wet. This surprised me and threw me off guard - I quickly tripped over myself and the ball and went sprawling forward. The whole school laughed uproariously and everybody simultaneously swarmed the field. The soccer game went from ten players to fifty, and Shannon was mauled by more than a hundred school children wanting to shake her hand. Eventually we ran out of the school away with giggling children buzzing around us like flies. Good memory.

I thought I'd let you all in on the drama of our rummie game. The graph has lost the time component as our data collection wasn't mindful of visualizations. Must be rusty. But as you can see - 'twas still epic.

Gorilla Tracking in Mhinga National Park

The most publicized tourist adventure in Uganda is the tracking of the families of habituated mountain gorillas. There are only a couple hundred mountain gorillas left in the world (all in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Congo) and they have never successfully been bread in captivity. So they're kinda a big deal. Kinda cool but comes with a heft price tag to spend only an hour with them.

The first guy I met who had done it was in Botswana. He paid $1000 for a gorilla tracking permit online. When this permit turned out to be fake, park rangers refused to let him go. He bought a second permit for $500 from the park rangers but fell ill and missed his tracking date. He finally got to track gorillas after purchasing a third permit. His experience consisted of thirty minutes of tracking and a one hour session with the gorillas. $1333 per hour? He claimed it was the best thing he had ever done.

I later met Joseph, likely the most experienced traveler I've ever met. He recounted the tale of his twelve-hour trek up the steep slopes of the Impenetrable Forest to find the illusive gorillas. He said it was fabulously worth while and a bargain for money. He also mentioned how deforested Uganda was now compared to when he visited many years ago and claimed that the future of the gorilla was bleak. He convinced me at the time, but in retrospect I disagree as gorilla tracking is now the third largest industry in Rwanda. With permit prices doubling in the next two years, even the DRC is protecting their gorillas.

Shann and I went.  It was pretty cool. Shann describes it better.

The silver-back screamed at our guides and walked to his lady via a path just a couple meters in front of us making eye contact. That put us in our place.		The baby swung around playfully.

The next day we stayed in the park to bag the three peaks of Mount Sabinyo in the Virunga range of volcanoes. It was a casual hike with a few new friends from New Zealand. On the third peak, we stood in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Congo at the same time. We played twister - right arm Uganda, left leg Rwanda above the border. We had lunch in the Congo - despite being brief, its the thirteenth country I visited on my sabbatical.

This was the closest we've been to the rainforest depicted in my dreams. I must say that the majesty of Jumanji continues to illude me, but it is still beautiful. The third peak was the highest and best as the last 200 meters were vertical and conquered by a series of sketchy wooden ladders. I think this might have been the first hike I've done with Shann which she actually enjoyed.