Snake Dike is one of the most classic Yosemite adventure climbs. This route climbs a wild dike feature on the southwest face of Half Dome. The climbing is notoriously runnout, but moderate. 

I had always wanted to climb this route, for the pure novelty. But even though moderate, the runnout on polished slabs intimidated me. But then I met Casey in Yosemite (I had replied to his mountainproject partner post) and he was psyched on the idea of Snake Dike. In fact, he had climbed it three times before. He was willing to do it a fourth time. Sweet.

It is a half-marathon type day with five thousand feet of elevation gain, so we decided to start hiking at 6am. When we arrived at the base of the route, there was another party starting up the first pitch. They were a party of three: a six-year-old girl, her dad, and his buddy. We waited a bit and then started climbing, but kept getting on their tail. They let us pass on Pitch 3 (they had accidentally traversed right to the wrong anchor at the top of the pitch, which worked out well for the pass). Casey led the first three pitches, after which I realized I had nothing to be intimidated about (while runnout--essentially, one bolt/anchor/cam every 100 feet-- the climbing felt secure and mostly 5.4 R with the 5.7 sections just off a bolt), and I started leading. Plus it was just pure fun juggy dike climbing, even more fun on the sharp end. We made quick time and were on the summit after a few hours. After a nice lunch break on the summit and chatting with the curious summit crowds ("You climbed up here? How?!"), we descended the Cables (this took awhile as there were several traffic jams) and hiked out. What a fun day!

Thanks Casey for joining me in this adventure!

Below are pitch-by-pitch photos from our climb.