Whenever someone dies on Yosemite’s Half Dome while climbing or descending the infamous cables section, I am always surprised.
Not surprised it happened. Surprised it doesn’t happen more frequently.
By 21st-century standards, the row of threaded cables, steel posts and wood planks used by hikers to clamber up and down the final 400 feet of polished granite are dangerous — incredibly so in wet weather. And considering tens of thousands make the attempt every year, most with little rock climbing experience, the fact that “only” 10 people have died falling from the cables since 1948 is nothing short of good fortune.
That cold statistic offers zero solace to Jonathan Rohloff, who watched his 20-year-old daughter Grace Rohloff slide past him to her death as they descended the cables together July 13. (While on the summit, the pair was caught off guard by a sudden storm. Most of Half Dome’s fatal falls occur during rainy weather.)
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Rohloff was the first fatality on the cables section since 2019. Each time, questions are raised about safety and what the park service could or should be doing to better protect and warn visitors.
At present, those questions are being asked by Jonathan Rohloff himself. In multiple interviews with major California media outlets, Rohloff implored the park service to install additional metal poles and wooden planks on the route in order to provide hikers with more places to brace themselves on the steep slope.
“What happened to Grace doesn’t have to happen to anyone else,” Rohloff told the Los Angeles Times. “They can put in a system on the cables to make it so much safer. Grace would want that.”
In that interview, Rohloff said he told park rangers his daughter died “because the cables are unnecessarily dangerous” but had not heard back regarding any planned improvements. Likewise, park officials have declined comment when contacted by reporters.
“The silence has been deafening,” Rohloff said.
The Half Dome cables are something I used to write about (and experience firsthand) with some frequency. In 2010, as a solution for overcrowding when permits were being considered, I suggested adding a third row of cables in order to create separate up and down “lanes.”
Two years later, Congressman Tom McClintock proposed the very same thing in a letter to the Secretary of the Interior. However, Yosemite officials refused to even consider that option — or any other upgrades to the cables — because such projects would constitute an “improvement” to wilderness. And that’s a big no no.
What’s really wilderness?
Ninety-five percent of Yosemite National Park (including the trails leading to Half Dome) is a federally designated wilderness area. Meaning it is managed by the park service in accordance with the 1964 Wilderness Act.
Without getting too far in the weeds, wilderness areas are defined as places that retain their primeval character and “the imprint of man’s work (is) substantially unnoticeable.”
So technically, the cables themselves are in violation. They certainly weren’t made by Mother Nature. And as can be attested by the lengthy scuff mark on Half Dome’s east face, visible from Olmsted Point or in aerial photos, the imprint of millions of hiking boots is quite noticeable indeed.
But because the cables were erected by the Sierra Club in 1920 — decades before the Wilderness Act came along — they are considered “grandfathered in.”
That’s the logic Yosemite officials used to employ as an explanation for why the cables are so rickety and can’t be improved. At least, back in the days when they were more willing to answer questions from nosy reporters.
As a counter-point, I’d bring up how the park service built a ranger station and permanent restroom at Little Yosemite Valley on the trail to Half Dome, which is also a wilderness area. “Improvements” that alter the character of the land far more than drilling a few more holes in the rock for extra stanchions.
Such arguments fell on deaf ears, and continue to.
The park service publishes extensive information online about how to hike Half Dome safely, including tips for limiting risk on the cables. (The best advice is knowing when to turn around.) Permit-holders go through safety training, and a ranger is stationed at the subdome to check permits and advise on conditions.
Mountains can never be made completely safe, even more so one made from polished granite and steeper than a staircase. But there’s no real reason, besides bureaucratic stubbornness, why the Half Dome cables need to be so dangerous. It’s a wonder more people haven’t died.
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