Valley Conditions, RNWF Half Dome

so...me and my Front Range crew heading out to the valley next week (yahoo!!!).

planning on RNWF HD, then who knows.

A few questions:

1) how busy is half dome these days? any idea of how long we might expect to wait before getting on the route?
2) I assume the the spring at the base is dried up now? can anyone confirm that?
3) regarding the fixed ropes on the east slabs, are the conditions such that people approaching are actually jugging these with harneses on, or is it more of a hand over hand kind of ascention? (i know this will probably be obvious when we get there, i'm just kind of obsessing at this point).
4) we are planning on a party of 3 for the RNWF - we are planning on going with only 2 ropes, and hope to be able to rap on the lead line for teh lower outs. is this do-able? or will we need another independent rope for rapping the lower outs?

right now, we're planning on what sounds to be the typical strategy these days, 1 leader, and 2 followers with packs of minimal bivy gear for the big sandy. hope to fix 3 pitches, and make it to big sandy at the end of a long day one.

any other advice for us RNWF neophytes?

thanks in advance. can't wait for my week in the mecca!!!

S

My recommendation, and i think others will agree, is to pick up another partner at Camp IV, and climb it in a day in two parties. If you can make it to big sandy with packs, you can finish in a day. If you are thinking of getting to big sandy w/ three climbers, you can definitely make it to the summit in a day.
I didn't use any fixed ropes on the death slabs approach. Don't know about the springs right now, but probably dry.

have fun, great route.

bump. ahhhhhh the valley in less than a week.

Depending on your experience and speed as a team of three, I think it will be difficult to reach Big Sandy in a day. If you free climb a lot of the route and are fast and efficient, you'll have a chance, but if this is your first big wall and or your first time on HD, you may be a bit slower than you plan to be (this is from my own humbling experiences).

Good luck and post up back here with a report when you return!

The spring was running as of 9/2, which probably doesn't help much. The guys at the Mtn Shop told us the spring dried up in July, so we humped all of our water to the base.

Most of the fixed lines had two ropes, one unknotted rope that we used to self-belay with ascenders, and another knotted line to climb hand-over-hand.

sweet! - thanks for the information and advice everyone.

Brian, sounds like you were up there recently. can you tell me how busy the wall was? do you think we should anticipate having to wait at the base to get on the wall?

also, brian, can you shed light on if the cleaners will need an extra rope for the lower outs? we are hoping to just bring 2 ropes, and lower out on the fixed (lead) lines.

regarding strategy, i think that our team agrees that pulling it off in a day is beyond us. (or at least unwise for us to attempt). feeling that aiding thru the zags will take us some time. so...that is why we are shooting for big sandy. alternatively, we could shoot to bivy twice, at 11 and then 17...maybe make that call when we get there, and see if there's other parties planning on big sandy. if so, it will ease my mind as we feel confident getting to pitch 11 in a day, 17 the next day, then toping out, but that also means 3 days of water instead of two.

this is not exactly our first wall, as some of our party has been out on some bigger climbs, so the advice is soaking in at this point. in our favor, however, is sucess on many harder free routes, and we have a good team, with a (relative) strong aider, crimper, and chimney expert.

i realize this is a personal question here, and the ultimate answear will depend on each person's skills, but did those of you find that it was easier for the cleaners to straight up jug thru most of the free climbing? or faster to free most of the 5.9? we're contemplating using a guide device, and be able to climb or jug, hoping that this will be fast, but i can see that communication becomes tough. maybe once you start jugging, that you continue to the top? any advice? seems that other's beta i read indicated that just jugging for teh cleaner was the best way to go, unless it was very easy and traversing.

anyways, thanks everyone, and if anyone has any other advice, let her rip!

S

Certainly worth noting:
supertopo.com/climbing/thre…

That rockfall post is over two years old....so that shouldn't be a big deal. Trying to climb the first six pitches with a big pack will be more of an issue. I think it is definately easier to jug with a pack than follow 5.9 in one but that is just me. Also before you decide on your plan you should locate Big Sandy from the Valley floor and decide then if you want to carry bivy gear ALL the way up there to keep you from having to climb an extra 500 feet in a day.

Don't even plan to bivy at 11..maybe a good site for one but no way three. The bivy at 6 is sloping but bigger and relatively flat.

It is cold up there this time of year, and not as many big crowds. Maybe better to bivy at the shoulder where you get some sun.

If you do decide to jumar with big packs make sure you know how to clip your pack into the rope to keep some weight off your arms for the first 6 pitches or prepare to suffer.

Have fun up there!

It seems much faster to have the cleaners jug the pitches. With 3 people, you should be leading the next pitch before the last team mate has reached the belay.
I agree with previous post, make sure you can remove the packs when needed or the cleaners will fry and slow down your effort. Also the bivvy at 6 is bigger (yes, and sloped), but if you fix from there you may still be able to finish without stopping at big sandy.

Couldn't you have one guy lead up, then the next follow as fast as possible...if that means free climbing or jugging. Then once 2 are at the upper belay and one at the lower have someone leading the next pitch, someone belaying on a grigri/hauling, and the other dude is jugging up. That way you avoid jugging with packs (nightmare - especially on Half Dome). The guy jugging can also deal with some of the potential "crap the haul bag is stuck" issues.

It seems like you would be able to keep pace with a normal team of two this way. I've never done this just thinking out loud.

Hauling on HD is a bit of a bitch...but with three people you should be able to haul quickly. I might want to haul then climb or jug with heavy packs. Just be careful of the chimney pitches. Staying the night on Big Sandy is awesome and shouldn't be discounted. Great view, great position, and it sleeps three. I wouldn't bivy anywhere else - especially with three...forget about it.

Helps to have the first 2 or 3 pitches fixed the day before. Have fun.

all right...for those interested, here's my trip report.

we pulled it. for us wall neophytes, a great success. obviously, when you see our style we suck comparred to the hardmen, but for us working stiffs, we are all walking taller and feeling good about ourselves. (sorry for teh vanity here...but shit, it is true!)

so...we are all salary guys, and only had one week out there (9 days, minus travel days) - originally, we were only looking at some longer free climbs, and no wall action, but partner rob couldn't help but look to a bigger prize. so we decided to give the dome a try.

we couldn't get any beta on the springs, and if they were running, so we carried water. lots of water

in actuality, it was flowing when we started, but dry when we got off. probably unlikely that we could have got all the water we needed out of it...it is small.

So…it was awesome, brutal, cool, lame, fun, torturous, treacherous, and mostly, a shit ton of work. It took us 3 days on the wall. We hiked out on day 1, which was a super brutal, leg cramping suffering hike. Anyways, got up there, and the original plan was to fix the first 3 pitches on day 1, then go for the pitch 17 bivy on day 2, then top out and hike out on day 3. man, that would have been nice. In actuality, we were 5 days car to car. So….when we got there, we were greeted by teams from spain and England. They were both shooting for the top in one day, but would sleep on the bivy at 17 if they didn’t make it. We were reluctant to go for the original plan since we didn’t want to share the bivy with the other 2 teams, weren’t sure if they would make it in one day, and also because we were so tired from the hike up, and wasn’t looking forward to trying to climb 3, or even 1 pitch after getting up there. we had all of our bivy gear, a shit ton of climbing gear, and water (heavy!) –

Anyways, we changed plans, and decided to go for 2 nights on the wall, bivy on pitch 6, then 17. we actually did make this plan. Much more realistic for us. 17 pitches in one day is huge, and even 11 is still a big day (for us guys). Also, during the night 2 other teams showed up. One from spain, another from mexico. The mexico team, although nice, eventually bogged us down, and caused us to top out and get to the pitch 17 camp in the dark. Made for lots of frustration, extra harness hanging, and all around stress of trying to get from point A to point B without freaking out. So…we started off our day 2, and eventually ended up at the bivy on pitch 6. We definitely found our limits of jugging packs on this trip.

Our method would have worked pretty well if we were only doing 1 bivy, but with 2, it was a lot of weight.

Anyways, we still topped out on pitch 6 in the dark (we lost lots of time letting the one american team we saw get on the route first, since they were going for pitch 11 in a day...only to watch them flounder, jug our rope, aid about 20 feet, before realizing they were in over their heads and bail...lame) - and it was actually better than I thought. Rob actually had a spot where he could lie down, and brian and I shared a ledge where our backs were against the wall, and our feet dangled over the ledge. It was not cold, but we were fairly miserable. – so day 2 was much better, as the packs were much lighter. We caught the mexico party on pitch 11, about the time that we were getting passed by another team from france that was going in a day. We followed them from 11 all the way to 17, which slowed us down a ton, and robbed us of our afternoon salami and cheese on the bivy ledge to watch the sun go down. The bivy 6 was horribly uncomfortable, but the bivy 17 was nice. Us 3 slept on a ledge maybe a few inches wider than our sleeping bags, with the drop off all the way straight down to our packs. It is about ¾ or so the way up, maybe only 400-500 feet under the summit.

Day 3 was sweet. This part of the route has the most classic pitches. The zig zags, the thank god ledge, and technical crux on pitch 22, with a C1+ move. - we made good progress, but were again behind the mexico party all day. We did finally pass them on the final pitch, #23, that we dubbed the Michael Jordon pitch. The best part for me was the pendulums and also the thank god ledge. The thank god ledge is pitch 20 or so, and is about 10-20 inches wide, with tons of exposure. You start out on your feet, shimmying side to side, desperately trying to stay as close to the rock as you can. Eventually, the rock pushes you out, and you crawl like a baby. After a short while, foot holds come out, and you hand traverse on the ledge, eventually going back up to crawling at the end. Very memorable and full of 2000+ feet of exposure.

Anyways, we topped out right at sunset, and then had a fiesta celebration on top. So we went down the cables, back to the packs, and crashed out.

Also, on the very end of the climb, near pitch 19 or so, we got passed by this French team, a man and a women, in their 50 and 60’s. doing it in a day. It was amazing. Here we have 3 american climbers in their prime, and it takes us 3 days to get up. These 60 year olds climb this thing in a day. Absolutely amazing!

good luck everyone, have a good winter, and thank you yoseimte!!! we'll be back next september.

PS...oh yeah, almost forgot - i wanted to answear my original question #4, which i never got from anyone: the answear is yes, it is do-able. in fact, i saw more than one party with only one rope. most of the lower outs had webbing/cord on them, and they were all pretty easy. the C1+ move after the thank god ledge (P22) doesn't need a cam hook, you can get on the bolt ladder with a yellow metolius sized cam.

mountainproject.com/v/gener…;

Steve Kahn wrote:all right...

Right on. Its always good to see some salary guys stick it to the man!