Cables Come Down On Yosemite’s Half Dome

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Yosemite, CA — A sign of the changing season, Yosemite National Park reports that the cables have been removed from Half Dome.

The cables are installed on the Friday ahead of Memorial Day weekend and stay in place through the second Monday in October. Permits, acquired via a lottery system, are required to scale Half Dome while the cables are in place. They were removed earlier this week.

Yosemite officials say that they “strongly discourage” hikers from attempting to summit Half Dome while the cables are down. It requires proper technical knowledge, experience, and equipment.

The summit of Half Dome is nearly 5,000 feet above Yosemite Valley and 8,800 feet above sea level.

The National Park Service states that a report in 1865 deemed Half Dome “perfectly inaccessible,” but George Anderson defied the experts and was the first to reach the summit, 10 years later (in 1875). The path he took is very similar to today’s cable route.