Snake Dike 

I like long days so this qualifies.. The approach is tough, but the climb is great fun. Once the roped climbing is over it's a calf buster to the top.

Take a small set of cams. From 1/2 to one inch. On the first pitch climb to the tree on the left, sling it, and make the easy friction moves into the roof where you can immediately set a bomber cam. On the third pitch, look up and about five feet left from the belay to see the traverse bolt.

The free guide at Supertopo.com was quite helpful. Brought a set of nuts, six cams from black alien up to 0.75 camalot C4, six trad draws, one double-length draw, and some random slings/biners - more than enough gear. A skinny 60m rope allowed us to skip a couple of the belays. 8 pitches / 12 hours car-to-car. Bring gloves for the stupid cables :)

Good cruiser stuff up a nobby dike. Besides the traverse above the roof early on, the descent is the headiest part. Going down the cables is quite exposed. And the freaked out asian lady screaming chinese profanities whilst not letting go of either cable, makes the route memorable.

An excellent free download of the topo for Snake Dike is available from supertopo.com, loaded with lots of info: www.supertopo.com/freetopos.html#snakedike

I used to do this climb every year. It is awesome!

On one of the upper pitches there is a short section where the dike ends and there is a bolt in the smooth gap. I always thought this section was pretty tricky. You may not notice it leading (with the bolt), but it can be scary for soloists.

When descending the cables on a crowded day you may find it easier to clip into the cables with a binner attached to a sling then step outside of the cables. Use another sling and binner to clip past the poles so that you are always clipped in.

The crux of the route is the never ending slabs to the top. Bring enough water and don’t worry too much about the Runouts. A fall in some areas would be really bad but the climbing is extremely easy.

Question:
Are there any potential scary pendulum falls for the second on this route? I.e. would it be a bad idea to take a 5.8- climber as your second? Thanks!

There is some traversing at the beginning of the second (5.5ish) and third pitches (one 5.7 move). A 5.7-5.8 climber should have no problem. Enjoy!

The approach is not that hard to find, and it only took us 3 hours on our first try.

After getting soaked at Mist Falls, the trail winds up towards Liberty Cap. When the trail abruptly runs into Liberty Cap, it forks. The hiker's trail goes right, you go left. It's that simple.

The hardest part is thrashing through the spring growth in the valley between Liberty Cap and Mt. Broderick, but the views and route pays you back in spades.

Just did Snake Dike last week, had the free Supertopo beta and the Mountain Project beta. Neither accurately represents the second and third pitch. Here is what you will encounter.
As you take off on the traverse of second pitch you can get in a piece and than clip a bolt. You will than see a pair of anchors about 60 ft up. I suggest you clip them and bring up partner. This ends the second pitch (do not recommend going further for the following reason). P2 on Mountain Project says go past "pair of bolts" (anchor), move up and right to a "fixed pin to another pair of bolts". The "fixed pin" is actually a folded metal hanger with bad 1/4 inch pin. The "pair of bolts" is wrong...as you move past the old folded hanger you encounter only one SMC hanger on a 1/4 inch bolt that sticks out approximately 1/4in and has old webbing hanging off of it. Would not anchor myself on it and use this as protection for my leader. If the leader on the third pitch were to slip on the 50 ft traverse after clipping into this suspicious bolt it probably would not hold.
So belay from the two anchors about 30 feet below on P2.
start P3 from here, do not use the folded hanger, clip the crappy SMC hanger and 1/4inch pin and hope no one falls.

Laurel, I think you got confused by the Mountain Project beta.
The pair of bolts mentioned by Mountain Project that you have to pass in P2 is the optional belay from the free Supertopo for P1.
If you used that optional bolted belay on top of P1 then the next pair of bolts you will encounter is indeed the P2 belay.
Concerning P3, I think you missed the traverse on the left and went off route on Snake Dance.
To future Snake Dike climbers, if you can clip any quarter incher during the climb, check your topo, you are probably off route.

A good thing for this route is a LONG rope 60m or better. This really helps out on the upper part.

Did this a couple years ago with some friends, 2 parties of two. First leader took about 20 slings and maybe a couple of nuts and started blasting, his partner simulclimbed behind him unclipping the gear and leaving it in place. My partner was right on his heels clipping in the pre placed gear and I brought up the rear cleaning everything. From bottom to top I think it took us about 1 hr 15 minutes or right about there. Fantastic route!

me and my girlfriend tried snake dike...
the hike there was longer and more strenuous than we had originally thought it would be. curns pointed the way, just hard to find them all the time.
finally getting to the dike. ive never climbed on gannet or done a "friction" climb so maybe thats why it was so hard? ? ? ?
i had brand new 5.10 prism they didn't seem to stick to the rock at all. it seemed no matter what i did, i would feel very unsure and would slip a few times on the smooth rock. which made the first 3 pitches VERY SCARY !!! my girlfriend also had 5.10 shoes but seemed to do a little better than me, but was pretty scared too.. we were unprepared for the Friction parts of this climb. and i consider myself a hard climber. i tried to find everything i could on snake dike before we left so i wouldn't have any surprises. she and i eventually felt like doing the rest of the climb could be left for another day a repelled off and went home. :(

We did this route on one 60m rope as a party of 3 on a hot 8/29. Approach beta was good and made it from Curry to the base of the route in 3 hours.

Climbed the P1 left side variation, slung the tree and made the easy friction moves up to the left side of the roof where it's easy to get a bomber nut in. Ran up the flake to the small ledge on top and belayed the followers from the 2 bolt anchor.

While the traverse off the P2 belay is a bit of an attention grabber, the moves are easy and you get a nice piece in before stepping over the bulge and clipping the next bolt. Moved up and left, stepping down into a small bucket after clipping the bolt before finishing the traverse moves to the dike and the 2 bolt anchor where we set up the 2nd belay.

Simuled all the dike pitches stopping twice to get gear back (note, some of the knobs are easy to sling if you want extra security)and found the route finding pretty straight forward although there are definitely some trickier variations to be had if you want them.

Walkoff is long but the hike down the cables and back to camp is way longer. All in all a super fun day and easy enough for a 5.8 leader with his or her head on straight. The toughest part of this route is not thinking about the runouts. All the bolts that need to be in good shape are in good shape. Bring lots of water.

Once You reach the dike, the rest of the pitches can be linked with a 60m rope.

Moonlight ascent in summer 2009.

2pm leave bay area
6pm start hike at curry village
10pm base of climb
2am top of half dome
5am back to curry village
nap time
breakfast
9am drive back to bay area
1pm back home

...something like that. not sure if the hike is worth the climb. also, although moonlight ascent was something to remember, we didn't feel the "exposure" because we couldn't see how high we were.

still, moonlight ascent meant no crowd and perfect temp even during summer.

the beta available is pretty accurate and if you use your brain the climbing is logical and the protection reasonable. (the runouts are real but easy, as everyone notes, and the cruxes have pro.)

we found the approach to be tricky. not being a yosemite local, i contemplated crossing dicey slabs way too many times. ("should this look like third class to me??") all we lost was time- so i will say this:

when the supertopo approach beta says "pretty much walk straight towards the face of half dome", they are serious. this may also mean trending right and up. we followed broken ledges and corners up and right, with some bad bushwacking, until a ledge walk back to the left (and southwest) became obvious.

a little friendliness goes a long way with the parties that will inevitably surround you.

I now know why some call this 'snake HIKE'. I used to think it was to denigrate the climb as hardly worthy of consideration as a climb because it is a moderate--thinking that hardass climbers were snobs. But no! It's because of the hike after you climb. My freakin' god! I've done the hike before but not with gear in my pack. All I'm sayin' is, if BASE was legal...

All that said, I'd do it again tomorrow. A stellar climb and truly worthy of the five star rating.

Oh, and the runouts? Yeah--a real attention getter but never felt dangerous. Made us careful on lead.

Did snake dike Saturday 5/12. Left curry village parking lot at 8:30am and got back to car at 11:00pm. Last chance for water was at Nevada Falls. Fill up and drink as much as you can there. The climber’s trail is not too hard to find and follow in daylight using supertopo description. Had to wait in line at the climb for about an hour since we left late. We topped out and descended cables with prusiks before dark. Hiked down to valley via headlamp.
I am a solid 5.8 trad leader and this is the rack we brought:
Three stoppers sizes 12, 8, and 5.
Two ball nuts; purple and blue (lighter than cams in their range)
Three wild country cams sizes 2.5, 1.5, and 1.
5 alpine slings
3 double length slings (used two as cordlettes at belay stations)
60m twin ropes to save weight and have the ability to rap if needed (a single 60m is what everyone else was using)

Not a single person on the route. The clear crux for me was the first pitch traverse. It's slick! I used 4 draws, 3 cams from .5-1", and a #11 stopper on the route.

Agree with Jim Dover's assessment BANG on when folk say bring plenty of water- but to qualify with numbers - and add some
1) Hike in - plan for 4 hours unless you already know the approach
2) Runout - depending on how you link the pitches and which anchors you use - 165ft pitch with one bolt? Make sure that your head is ready for this.
3) Hike Out (back to Curry Village) - Plan for 5 hours
4) Climb - 8 pitches of REAL climbing then 1000 ft 3rd class slab with 5th class consequences if you take a tumble - i don't know that you'd just land flat on your face if you slipped. factor this time into any itinerary that you have for the day. depending on how long you stay roped up - plan 1 - 2.5 hours
5) Plenty of water - we had 4 liters (2 each) and got to the top with half a liter left. Climbing in september had a hand pump water filter with us and refilled the camelbacks at the river in little Yosemite camp ground.
6) you have climbing gear - keep your harness on and clip into those cables on the descent (two slings and two biners) - those cables are the scariest thing that i've done. more so that 165ft with one bolt..

Climbed this yesterday. I thought the technical crux was on the first pitch and the psychological is the 1200 feet of unroped slab to top out. There are bear lockers at Little Yosemite Valley. If you get a permit you can hike 4 of the 6 mile approach the day before.

My favorite way to do Snake Dike:
Gear
lightest 60m Rope you can get your hands on, a 50m might even work and be lighter.
6 single length slings/trad draws
2 double length slings
4 locking D biners
2 Locking HMS type biners
Red and brown tri-cam
black metolious 4 cam
green metolious 4 cam
Harnesses or webbing for a swiss seat.
Steri-pen

I start the hike around 5am with 3 water bottles, but only 2 filled (for both of us) at the top of the second water fall (nevada falls?) drink up and leave with all 3 filled. Climb the route I love slinging horns/knobs on the way up to reduce the runout. Hike the slabs and eat lunch. Hoof it down to the stream and drink more water. Truck past the tourists and hopefully make it to curry village to eat dinner before the buffet closes. Last time I did it our time was around 12 hours car to car and we weren't really hurrying. I usually don't take a belay device and just use a munter; I've even done it with just a piece of webbing tied into a swiss seat, but I think it's probably worth carrying a harness. Go light, be calm and enjoy!

The Supertopo is great with one exception. There are two new bolts above the 2nd belay (start of P3) that are easy to see and have taken some people off route. The bolt shown on the topo that you want to use is actually quite difficult to see from the belay. Head left from the belay on to the slab watching above for the bolt.

Climbed this one Wed, 4/24/2013 and was treated to fantastic weather and nobody else on the summit! What an amazing day. A trip report:

- We left our car at the Glacier Apron lot at 7:45 and hiked directly from there. The SuperTopo suggests taking the bus to the Happy Isles, but saving the .5 miles hiking didn't seem worth that effort.

- In addition to the light rack recommended above, we brought a sandwich and two energy bars each, plus 2.5 liters of water per person on a moderate/warm April day. In retrospect, the food was more-or-less sufficient but the water was lean. You may want to bring purification tablets so you can use the stream/snowmelt (if available) for water refill sources as opposed to lugging more water weight.

- Although the SuperTopo approach beta suggested taking the:
Muir Trail > Mist Trail > Muir Trail
we accidentally missed the Mist Trail turn-off and wound up hiking to Clark Point before heading a bit back down across the valley. In retrospect, this didn't add much time and allowed us to avoid the oft-slippery Mist Trail portion as we stayed on well-groomed dry switchbacks all the way to Clark Point. Not a bad alternative.

- After getting to the shoulder of Liberty Cap, the beta is to basically hug that rock as you head left, keeping tabs on a faint trail. Soon you'll reach the gap between Liberty and Half Dome, where you'll turn right to traverse the gap before the terrain will turn more flat (a small stream will be on your left). The trail then becomes fainter again, and the terrain more wooded. At this point, we crossed the stream at an arbitrary point and found the start of the extensive cairns leading to the base.

- The toughest part of the approach felt like the last bit of hiking straight up steep, loose faint switchbacks in the heat of the morning, then traversing the Half Dome base to the route start. Take your time in this section so you're not too burned out for the route itself.

- It took us a while to ID the route start from the SuperTopo because the cairns actually pass the Snake Dike route and go a little further to the base of a different route (I believe this is the "SW Face" route). The key to finding Snake Dike is IDing the "three trees" in the topo that bracket the route from below.

- Lead this route only if you feel super-solid leading 5.8. I think if you lead at a lower level, the extensive run-outs might feel pretty scary (though the climbing itself is very solid, especially after P2).

- Once on top of Half Dome, don't miss the epic photos from the top. Recommendation is to (carefully) position one photographer on the "diving board" and the other(s) across the top for great views!

- I highly recommend prusiking into the Half Dome cables on the descent, especially if the cables are down. That bit is pretty steep and you'll likely be pretty tired by that point, so better safe than sorry.

- We went for the one-day approach and although it was an exhausting day (took us 11 hours, 55 minutes car-to-car with minimal rests), I think this is the best way to do it as long as it's not too hot out. We did see a couple parties during our decent hiking up to camp out at the base and do it in two days, but the prospect of carrying camping gear and more food/water up and down that approach did not sound fun.

If you have any other questions about the route, it'll be fresh in my mind for a while, so feel free to email!

Found a tent nearish the base of Snake Dike, 05/18/2013, email me if it's yours. ryantvwalker@gmail.com