A Hard Lesson from Tragedy on Half Dome

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I haven't been able to get the tragic tale of a young woman and her father out of my mind. In case you missed it, the pair of experienced hikers summited Half Dome in Yosemite just as a rogue storm approached. They immediately began the descent, which is nerve-wracking on its own, when the skies opened and turned the "trail" of slate from dangerous to deadly. 

The young woman, who was studying to become a teacher at Arizona State, was wearing new boots that lost traction. She slipped beyond the cables and plunged 200 to 300 feet, dying of a head fracture. These types of incidents, still uncommon, are unfortunately appearing in news feeds more frequently as hiking enjoys a moment. Last year a group of Half Dome hikers were trapped during a lightning storm that struck one of the hikers sheltering in a rock cave. Others barely made it down during the deluge.

The thing that struck me with the most recent fatality is the role of trail congestion. The Arizona woman's father noted that they tried to descend as quickly as possible and were hit with a wall of earlier hikers either paralyzed with fear or taking too long to move, thereby jeopardizing everyone above them.

This is why Half Dome requires a permit: to prevent pileups during emergencies like this. It takes an average of 10 to 12 hours to complete the 16-mile trail, and this warning from the National Park Service should alert anyone with height issues or inexperience that Half Dome is not for them. Three hundred hikers daily during the months when cables are up is a lot. If it takes all day to do it, people are going to start and end around the same time. This means slower hikers will be mixed in with faster ones, which forces the more cautious (or struggling) climbers to either create bottlenecks or push quicker people to take risks to maneuver around them.  

That poor father is going to relive that moment for the rest of his life and always wonder: What if the people below us were not so slow? 

When I was hiking some dicey spots in northern Arizona and southern Utah years ago, my friend would  remind me to make the leap (literally). "Trust the boot," she'd tell me. That college kid from Arizona trusted her boots too, despite never having tested them under the circumstances she faced. 

Maybe we shouldn't put so much faith in our footwear, or gear, or abilities on any given day. You can demonstrate grit and grace without putting other people in danger the moment things take a dramatic turn. You can prepare for all kinds of challenges during your training yet fail to see the biggest one you may face: others following in your footsteps, or you in theirs, who don't respond appropriately to a threat and end up endangering all.

Photo of Half Dome during a family vacation to Yosemite 20+ years ago.



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