Half Dome

A 2,694-metre granite formation in Yosemite National Park, California — not a peak in the traditional sense but a granite dome whose distinctive profile has made it one of the most recognizable mountain features in the world. Half Dome rises approximately 1,400 metres from the floor of Yosemite Valley. The northwest face is sheer granite for nearly 600 vertical metres, and the upper summit is a flat dome with a gradual approach from the east. The "half" in the name refers to the geological appearance — the dome looks as if its other half has been cleaved away, though geologists have established that the cleaving was a function of slow exfoliation rather than catastrophic loss.

The first ascent of the summit came in 1875 by George Anderson, who drilled iron eyebolts into the eastern slope and climbed using ropes attached to the bolts. Anderson's eyebolt route was replaced in 1919 by the cable route that remains the standard ascent today — two parallel steel cables strung up the eastern slope that climbers grip while ascending the steep granite face. The cable route is operational from May through October, and access is now permit-restricted.

What gives Half Dome its position in the climbing canon is the northwest face. The first ascent of the wall came in 1957 by Royal Robbins, Mike Sherrick, and Jerry Gallwas — five days of aid climbing on what was then the most demanding rock climbing route in the world. The Regular Route, as it is now called, has been climbed thousands of times. The free ascent — climbing the route without using fixed gear for upward progress — was completed in 2012 by Hans Florine and Alex Honnold in a single day. Honnold returned in 2018 to make the first solo free ascent without ropes, an effort documented in the film Free Solo.

The cable route receives approximately 50,000 summit attempts per year. The northwest face receives perhaps a few hundred climbing attempts per year. The fatality rate on the cable route has been moderate; deaths have resulted from falls on wet cables and from lightning strikes. The face routes have been responsible for several climbing deaths, though the rate is low relative to the difficulty of the climbing. Half Dome occupies a particular position in the mountain canon — a peak that is both heavily trafficked and home to one of the most demanding rock climbs in the world.