[Music]
I think it's almost impossible
to walk around the Valley in the Eastern end
when Half Dome is in view and not look at it.
How do you not look at it?
Like every time I go to Mirror Lake,
you know, I'd bike up there,
I'm kind of staring at the pavement when I bike up there.
And I park my bike
and I stand up and I just look up at the thing,
and it's like, gees,
okay, it's huge.
I'd forgotten how big it is.
And that I feel like that happens to me,
you know, at least once a week with Half Dome.
Think about where Half Dome actually is,
it's at the far end of the Valley,
think about all the things
that are starting to accrete on one's imagination.
You have Bridalveil Fall,
El Capitan, Cathedral Rock, Cathedral Spires,
Sentinel Rock, Sentinel Fall, Yosemite Fall,
and then suddenly there,
as if you've seen it all,
just standing out there stark against the blue sky
is Half Dome.
It does appear to be almost a kind of design,
but it's the happenstance of erosion
that things worked out that way.
The first geologist to interpret Half Dome kind of assumed
that the other half of the Dome
just cleaved away in one catastrophic event
and that would be kind of a neat and tidy story
for how it formed,
but we really don't think that it formed that way,
there's really not any evidence for that.
So instead, it's a more typical geologic story,
where there are several different things going on
over really longtime periods;
basically there is glacial erosion, steepening the faces,
and there is this process of exfoliation
and rock fall from the sheer face,
that just slowly changed the shape
of that rock formation through time.
Everyone has that sense that it's unique,
that there is something literally singular about it,
there is no other place,
no other objects like this on the face of the earth,
I think that's part of the charisma.
I mean, let's face it,
that's what we're really talking about,
some rocks have it and some rocks don't,
and Half Dome is charismatic.
You can in probably two lines make an image of Half Dome
that somebody on the other side of the world
will recognize as Half Dome.
I mean, it's that distinctive of an icon.
It's still just a mirror,
it's just a reflection of the power
that Half Dome has on our imagination,
that we try to duplicate or replicate,
you know, that power in little trinkets
or medallions or what have you,
because people recognize that,
when they hold that thing,
they're holding to some degree an aspect of Yosemite,
a dimension of Yosemite.
There is something about the shape of it, the size of it,
and also how nature itself has composed how we see it.
I mean, that's something that's so important about this,
it's not Half Dome viewed from other angles.
From almost any other angle,
it doesn't really look like a Half Dome.
I can't say what it does look like,
because it sort of has a unique appearance
from all those other angles.
Talking to people in the trail who are hiking right behind it,
this huge overwhelming presence on their left,
and they don't even realize it's Half Dome,
and they're going, well,
how far is it to the top?
You know, well, it's right there.
Oh, that's Half Dome?
What did you think it was?
But it doesn't... they just have that one mental picture.
Half Dome is perfectly inaccessible,
being probably the only one of all the prominent points
about the Yosemite which has never been,
and never will be,
trodden by human foot,
and that's a quote from Josiah Whitney in 1870.
Five years later it got climbed by George Anderson.
I think that was a dare more than anything else.
Well, a lot of it is the sheerness of it,
it just looks so impossible from all directions,
I think that attracts people
and they really feel like they've done something
when they do get up there.
And it's hard work,
let's just face it,
let's just cut right to the chase there,
it is difficult, it is hard,
as far as your heart and lungs,
even if you're in good shape,
it's still taxing.
It's a heck of a hike.
People always ask, well, how many miles is it to Half Dome?
And I say, miles don't matter, it's 5,000 vertical feet.
So it's a physical challenge,
but it's a delightful hike.
It's a spectacular hike,
because you get to walk by Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls
and you get to walk through the Yosemite Valley,
it's kind of like this natural staircase,
you know, leading you up to Half Dome.
But then, boom, you arrive at the Sub Dome
and there is the cables right in front of you,
and because you're looking straight at them,
they look really steep.
And it's funny to just sit up there and listen to people.
People get up to that point and they're breathing hard
and they pop over the top of the Sub Dome,
boom, there is the cables,
and the first thing on their mind is,
no way, not doing it, not going up there.
But then you just sit there and you listen to them,
they stop, they have some water, they need for lunch,
and 95% of those people go ahead
and they keep going and they do it.
And then when they get down,
you listen to those same people again,
and they're just high,
they are just flying because they did it,
and they got that experience of the summit
and they surprised themselves by being able to go up the cables.
It's an exposed place,
it's exposed in terms of heights,
so you can fall off of it,
and a fall is most likely going to be fatal.
It's exposed to the elements,
which means that, you know,
it get pretty cold up there in a hurry.
One of the biggest hazards up on the Dome itself is the weather.
Most of the accidents we've had on the cable
occurred when the rock was wet.
If you're wearing running shoes,
shoes without good rubber on them,
it's almost impossible to keep your feet under you,
and that's what's happened on some of those accidents.
And it's I think most importantly exposed
to things like thunderstorms,
and Half Dome gets hit by lightning all the time.
There is really no place to seek shelter when you're up there,
you just have to get down.
The problem is, you know, you have to get down in a hurry
and sometimes if there are a lot of people up there
all trying to get down the same route,
you can't get down nearly
as fast as you probably would like to.
Any chance of rain,
any chance of lightning,
just save it for another day,
go enjoy some other part of the park,
go for a hike farther up through Merced,
do something, that's not the place to be.
Half Dome presents
a lot of classic dilemmas in wilderness management.
We're getting a lot of first time visitors
to wilderness up there,
which is great,
and they are being introduced to wilderness
and having this wonderful experience,
that's something we want to encourage,
it's wonderful.
But there are so many of them that on some days
it's not really much of a wilderness experience anymore,
there are a lot of people up there.
There's no way to say to yourself I'm alone in this world
when you're hiking at Half Dome,
there's people in front of you,
there's people behind you, there's people beside you,
there's people that you pass as you're making your way up,
there's people that pass you as you're making your way up,
you know, so there's this collective movement
towards elevation and illumination
when people are walking to the top of Half Dome.
And where else do you have that,
except in that sacred sense of people in a pilgrimage.
A high percentage of the people up there aren't even hikers,
they don't do this routinely,
they may not have ever hiked that many miles in their life,
and for some reason when they come to Yosemite,
they think that's the thing to do.
You know, it does seem just from me
talking with people that hike the trail,
that a lot of the people up there,
this is like a big milestone in their life in someway.
There's more to it than just reaching the top of Half Dome,
it's accomplishing some goal
or it symbolizes something in their lives.
Or people telling me stories about
how Half Dome changed their life
just because it was the thing to do,
but it introduced them to the wilderness
and it turned them into a wilderness lover and a hiker,
and they went on to do that the rest of their life.
I met a cancer survivor once
who was determined to get well enough to climb Half Dome.
A lot of people try and do it before they reach a certain age,
you know, they... it just symbolizes a lot to them.
You know, all those little problems
that you had that you brought with you,
they really are little problems on top of Half Dome,
you know, so I think that's one of the reasons
why people go up there,
is not just so they can have that view looking out,
it's that clearer view looking within.
I think that just kind of lends
to the aura of the whole thing that,
you know, it's almost kind of magical in some ways
and that's not something I usually say as a scientist.
But Half Dome does evoke emotions,
you know, and feelings and interests on a whole scale
and I think that's why it appeals to artists
and scientists alike
and everybody in between,
you know, it has got some kind of appeal for everybody.