Day-use permits will be required next summer to climb the Half Dome Cables Route in Yosemite National Park. Permits will be required seven days a week during the period that the cables are attached to Half Dome's east face, generally from a week before Memorial Day in May until Columbus Day in October.
A maximum of 400 permits, with 300 reserved for day hikers, will be given out each day. In recent years, about 400 people climbed the route on weekdays while between 800 and 1,200 people climbed it on weekends. The permit system will ensure that traffic jams occur less often on the cables and keep hikers safer. A park press release says, "These large numbers of hikers generated significant safety concerns and there was a fatality and serious injuries sustained by park visitors due to these crowded conditions."
The 8.2-mile-long Half Dome Cables Route is a popular but difficult hiking route that climbs 4,800 feet to the rounded summit of Half Dome. The final 400 feet of the route ascends a couple cables anchored to metal posts in the slabby east face of Half Dome. In the past, climbers have had to wait as long as a half-an-hour for their turn up the cables. The Cables Route is rated Class 3 while the terrain away from the cables is technical 5th class climbing that requires a rope and a rack.
The 400 daily permits will be available starting four months before the climbing season starts on May 21 (which may change depending on weather and snowpack) through the National Recreation Reservation System website or by calling 877-444-6777. The first day that permits will be available is on March 1, 2011 at 7:00 am (Pacific time) for climbing it in May and June. You are allowed up to four permits per phone call or website visit. Permits will be mailed to you 14 days before your date.
You must have the permit with you when you do the hike and to be allowed up the cables. Rangers will check permits on the trail and no one without a permit will be allowed up to the base of the cables. Hikers who avoid the rangers and climb to the sub-dome or up the cables without a permit risk a $5,000 fine and up to six months in jail. Rock climbers who reach Half Dome's summit via a technical route do not need a permit to descend the cables.
Because not all 400 daily permit holders will show up to climb the cables, there may be last-minute permits available if they've been canceled. Ask at a park visitor center for more information. If you do have tickets and aren't going to use them, call 1-888-448-1474 to cancel them and allow someone else to use them.
Demand for permits is expected to be huge and permits will quickly be snatched up for choice days on the first day that reservations are accepted. Permit fee is $1.50, which covers processing the permit by NRRS.
For more information about the Half Dome permit system, visit the Yosemite National Park webpage Half Dome Permits.
For permit reservations, contact the National Recreation Reservation System after May 1, 2011.
Photograph above: Crowds of hikers stream in an ant-line up the cables on Half Dome last summer. Photograph courtesy Donna Brockman.
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