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Half Dome via Cables, Yosemite

Yosemite National Park, California · United States

Challenging2 daysNorth America~£150 est.

Overview

Half Dome is Yosemite's iconic monolith — the 2,693m dome whose sheer northwest face has defined adventure photography since Ansel Adams pointed his camera at it in the 1940s. The summit route climbs the back of the dome via two fixed steel cables on a 45-degree polished granite slope, above a vertical face that drops 600m to the valley floor. It is not technically difficult, but it is genuinely exposed, and the cables section above the shoulder has no safety net — if you fall, you fall. The round trip from Yosemite Valley is 24km and 1,460m of elevation gain — a serious day hike in any context, made harder by altitude and the physical demands of the cables. Most hikers start at 5–6am to reach the cables before afternoon thunderstorm buildup. The sub-dome approach below the cables is a classic Yosemite granite scramble: hands-on slabs at 30–35 degrees, requiring some comfort with exposure. The cables themselves (two parallel steel cables supported on metal poles driven into the granite) are the crux — 130m of near-vertical granite with wooden boards as foot rests. In wet conditions the polished granite becomes ice-slick and the NPS closes the cables entirely. A permit is required: 300 daily hikers maximum in the cable season (late May to mid-October). Apply in the permit lottery in March. Day-hike permits fill immediately.