Pavel and I were originally thinking of climbing on Saturday, which would leave Sunday to recover - but we didn't leave the Bay Area until 9pm on Friday night. That meant we'd be able to relax on Saturday cragging, then hike in during the afternoon and do the climb and hike out on Sunday, going back to work on Monday morning. Of course, we fully expected some suffering during that process...

Saturday morning was pretty cold in the shade, and we had a slow start to the day, eventually climbing Catchy and Catchy Corner at the Cookie cliff. Nice warm-up! Then we went to the ranger station to get a permit, ate lunch, and eventually left the car at Curry Village and took the bus to the Mirror Lake trailhead. From there we went up the infamous Death Slabs... definitely a bit sketchy, but made casual with fixed ropes guiding the way. We made it to the base in around 3 hours, and it was surprisingly hot! We were secretly hoping to have the route to ourselves, but it didn't look like that was going to happen. There was a party on the first pitch with haul bags and portaledge (!?), a couple of Brits lounging in the sun, and a couple that we had passed at the top of the approach - totalling 8 people. Hmm, not good! It turns out that the party with the ledge were going to take multiple days and only going to pitch 3 that night, so that meant they wouldn't be in anyone's way... but everyone else was planning on doing it in a day. We ended up fixing the first two pitches with the remaining light, and the US party of 2 jugged up our rope and fixed 3 for themselves (with our permission). They said they will set off at 3am.. and we planned on 5am, with the Brits after us. It sounded like a plan was coming together!

We were a little disappointed when at 4:30am, the party that was supposed to start at 3am was still on the ground - oh well. They jugged up all 3 pitches and hopefully were going to be ahead of us (they talked about being really fast, short fixing etc.) I was hoping to link pitches 3-4, but when I arrived at the pitch 3 belay (a short 5.8 pitch), I found the belayer of the other team still there, so I belayed there too. We stayed behind them and had to wait a bit, until eventually we were able to pass in the chimneys (where Pavel did a heroic 70 meter lead linking 3 pitches) - in return, we promised to fix their rope up the Zigzags. The Brits had caught up to us at that point and were entertaining me - how come Brits are always entertaining? :)

We didn't get much time to relax at Big Sandy ledge (where people doing it in 2 days tend to bivy), and next I got to do the Zigzags in the afternoon heat - they went by a lot easier than I expected in aid mode (even after having only aid climbed 1 pitch before), with lots of fixed gear and entirely straightforward cam placements (didn't need to use a single nut). The position there is just *incredible* and I can barely imagine freeing them, let alone free soloing (I was thinking of Alex Honnold's feat quite a bit...) Pavel took the next pitch and walked on Thank God ledge as the sun was setting - absolutely spectacular. Maybe I was just tired, but the 5.8 squeeze chimney at the end felt desperate, I was glad to have a toprope. The next pitch had a tricky move to switch between the bolt ladders (C1+), but my reach helped (I could place a bomber yellow C3 without much trouble, no need for cam hook or offset nut as the topo says). Alex soloed that too!?! Crazy insecure slab. At the lower portion of the route I can imagine a highly competent climber ropeless (it's not very sustained), but the last few pitches really kick up the exposure and difficulty - wow. It was pitch dark now and Pavel finished the last pitch with style - we were both at the summit at 8pm, 15 hours after starting. What a spectacular and memorable day of climbing!

I had never been to the top of Half Dome before, but it took us a couple of minutes to find the cables - made extra difficult because they were taken down for the season (the supports removed, cables laying flat). Not a huge deal, but we had to be careful... We left our stuff at the saddle and walked down the climbers trail, back to the start of the route, to retrieve the bivy gear and large packs. At this point, the thirst was maddening so we were very happy to fill the nalgene bottle with water from the spring. We each quickly downed over a liter of water. I had eaten 12 powerbars and 2 bagels with salami and at this point ran out of food, but it was just enough. We then walked back uphill now to the gear... 1.5 hours total for this detour, which was a bit longer and more exhausting than I expected. From there, the next 9-10 miles to the car are a bit of a blur, our legs and feet were paying the price! I wished I had something more than my old beat up approach shoes (that I took due to their light weight). Apparently, Pavel had some hallucinations hearing the voices/screams of people that drowned in Nevada/Vernal Falls... thankfully he didn't tell me at the time :) The most painful part was when we reached the pavement, from where you normally take a bus to get back to your car - but since it was so late, the buses weren't running. So we had to walk another mile of road to the car... (Note: we could have descended the Death Slabs, which we took for the approach, but they are a bit dangerous as you can probably tell from the name... especially in the dark in an exhausted state. So we elected to take the painful and long, but safe, descent using the hiking trail instead.)

Eventually we reached the car and the clock read 2am. The most dangerous part (driving home) was yet to come, and Pavel had a red bull and drove for ~1 hour, after which we pulled off the side of the road for a couple of hours of much needed sleep. I woke up surprisingly fresh after this nap, took the drivers seat and got us back to Gilroy where we switched again (with a brief stop at Starbucks for calories and coffee). Since we took highway 140, we got stuck in traffic near Gilroy on highway 101 - the contrast of being in a remote, wild place and then surrounded by thousands of people on their morning commute was just immense and weirdly satisfying. I considered taking a nap when I got home and showered, but now feeling refreshed, I headed into the office. And had a great day at work, getting a few things done, though my spirit was still on Half Dome... I slept for 13 hours straight the following night. I took the elevator to the 4th floor for the first couple of days...

Stats: 3 hours of hiking (approach), 15 hours of climbing, 1.5+4.5 hours of hiking (descent). 3 liters of water drank during the climbing day, 12 powerbars and 2 bagels

	Pavel starting up Catchy, sweet 5.10d at the Cookie	What a sweet pitch	Starting up Catchy Corner, amazing

	Amazing corner above (5.11a)	Fun	Stemming is the name of the game

	Pavel looking up the crux corner	Pavel at the top of the Catchy Corner	Approximate route location (photo from May 2011)

	Very rough approximation of the Death Slabs approach	Half Dome from the death slabs approach	Washington Column (left) and North Dome above it

	The first pitch starts in the middle of this picture. If you zoom in, you can see climbers on the first belay. Tricky 5.10c crux...	Dawn, as we're already a couple of pitches up the route. El Cap in the distance doesn't look so big from this perspective!	Somewhere in the lower angle section at 1/3 height

	The orange helmet is me. Taken from the base of the Robbins Traverse		Sunrise in the ditch. Beautiful...

	The Robbins Traverse (bolt ladder)	Aiding the Robbins traverse

	Looking down the Robbins traverse	The pitch after the Robbins traverse is actually a surprisingly tricky 5.9 face (hard to see in this photo)	We were stuck waiting behind a party, and another party caught up behind us...

	Starting up the next pitch. 5.11c corner (aided) + tension traverse to the right, to gain the chimneys	Beautiful clouds...	Washington Column now looks like Manure Pile Buttress :)

	Tensioning right into the "5.7 squeeze" (which I found kinda stout)	Pavel starting up the chimneys. This section is supposedly 5.7..	One of the British dudes fighting the 5.7 squeeze

	You can see the leader of the second party in the chimney above. They split the pitch into two... so we passed shortly after this	Continuing to grunt up the 5.7 squeeze with huge exposure in the valley below	What a backdrop!

	I was similarly stuck there for a minute or two :)		Every little black dot is a bee. Unbelievable, there were millions of them! Thankfully not aggressive.

	Pavel up the 5.9 double cracks leading to Big Sandy

	Meanwhile, Vendula and Carol were on North Dome hiking, with this view of Half Dome	Looking up at the Zig Zags	Beautiful views

	Washington Column is even smaller...	Half Dome as seen from North Dome. Note the death slabs approach - yikes!	Starting up the zig zags in aid mode

		If you zoom in, you can see Pavel and I on the zig zags!	Another shot of Pavel and I on the zig zags. Photo by Carol

		Pavel jugging up the first two zig zag pitches	Nice exposure below

	Last zig zag	Looking down from the belay before Thank God Ledge

	What a spectacular position!	Pavel jugging	The intimidating visor

		Spectacular	Pavel walking Thank God Ledge at sunset

		Sunset	Walking Thank God Ledge, I paused to take this photo