One Best Hike: Yosemite's Half Dome. Rick Deutsch

flock of smaller clouds, white as snow, came swiftly from the north, trailing over the dark forests, and arriving on the brink of the valley descended with godlike gestures through Indian Canyon and over the Arches and North Dome, moving rapidly, yet with perfect deliberation…. I have always discouraged as much as possible every project for laddering the South Dome, believing it would be a fine thing to keep this garden untrodden. Now the pines will be carved with the initials of Smith and Jones, and the gardens strewn with tin cans and bottles, but the winter gales will blow most of this rubbish away, and avalanches may strip off the ladders; and then it is some satisfaction to feel assured that no lazy person will ever trample these gardens.

      Anderson’s feat planted the seeds of the big-wall climbing mecca that Yosemite has become. His climb marked the debut of bolt placements in the American climbing scene. It opened an inaccessible mountain to many Yosemite visitors and made Half Dome a destination for hiking and climbing enthusiasts from all over the world.

      Yet Anderson did not rest on his laurels. He presented the idea of building a wooden staircase to the Yosemite Board of Commissioners. They set aside $2,000 for the project, but nothing came of it. Anderson even talked of building a steam-powered tram to take his guests to the top.

      In the months that followed, others tried Anderson’s route. However, the elements took their toll on the rope until it became unusable in a few years.

      In the spring of 1884 Anderson died of pneumonia and was buried under a granite rock in the park cemetery. With Anderson gone, the hope was that “some venturesome member of the English Alpine Club should come along and have the goodness to replace it,” as Alden Sampson wrote in a letter to author James M. Hutchings. Enter two true cowboys of the era, Sampson and A. Phimister Proctor. They arrived at Yosemite in search of fishing and relaxation and a try at going up Half Dome. When they heard that a Brit was being sought to replace the rope, Sampson said: “This aspect of the matter, I must own, galled our pride; and the more we thought it over the less we liked this solution of the difficulty. Should we, forsooth, wait for foreign sinew to scale for us a peak of the American Sierras? Not if it lay in our power to prevent so humiliating a favor!”

      After a short rest below Nevada Fall, at La Casa Nevada hotel, they rode their horses up the trail and arrived at Sub Dome to survey the situation. They saw that most of the original Anderson spikes had come out, making it difficult to ascend the smooth, steep sides. Being skilled cowboys, they used a rope to lasso higher spikes and rock holds. Proctor took the lead. The technique was to lasso a spike and then pull himself up. Amazingly, he did this barefoot because his cob nail boots were cutting in. Showing immense strength, he then did a jackknife to put his toe on the spike and worked his hand out. He would then lean precariously into the rock. All went well until they approached a bare stretch of a hundred feet, where every pin had been carried away. Gently clutching shrubs 8 inches high, the two gingerly hugged the rock. After many tries, Proctor finally snagged a rock edge and pulled himself up. They then were able to bring up their rope and secure it. Half Dome was open once more! However, the Proctor-Sampson rope also suffered from the harsh winters and soon became unusable. A replacement rope was installed by Thomas Magee Jr. and Stewart Rawlings in 1895, but it also frayed. Ropes put up in 1901 and later were successful to varying degrees.

      A. Phimister Proctor; courtesy A. Phimister Proctor Museum

      A. Phimister Proctor went on to become a world-class bronze sculptor. His focus was on life-size animal- and western-themed monumental designs. His Teddy Roosevelt and buckaroo renderings are among my favorites. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, houses many of Proctor’s artworks, and the Proctor Museum in Seattle continues to preserve his legacy.

      Vintage photo of the single rope system; courtesy of the Yosemite Research Library, NPS

      Looking for attractions to draw tourists to his Camp Curry, David Curry pressed for an easier route to the top. In 1910 the Sierra Club placed a single rope down Half Dome’s slope and removed the older ropes.

      Ascents continued off and on, depending on the condition of the rope. On August 7, 1915, Arthur “A. C.” Pillsbury led a group of 17 young Stanford students (including 6 women) up the back side of Half Dome. They used the rope remnants from previous explorers, their own rope, and a few of the George Anderson spikes that were still present from his first ascent in 1875. The group improved the route by placing a new half-inch Manila rope from top to bottom. Pillsbury snapped photos and motion pictures on top. He reportedly was suspended by rope to take some of the photos. Pillsbury was a Stanford graduate who had a studio in Yosemite. In his career, he invented key photographic tools, including the circuit panorama, the time-lapse, the microscopic motion picture, the X-ray motion picture, and the underwater motion picture cameras.

Construction of the Cable Route