Climbing Half Dome via Snake Dike

Graham and I started climbing less than a year ago in the gym but after meeting on the bouldering wall at Mission Cliffs, we ignorantly made it our objective to climb either half dome or El Capitan within the year. We had no idea there even was an easy route up Half Dome but after one trad trip under my belt and a decent amount of time watching videos on multi-pitch climbing, we set out to the Valley with Half Dome as our objective. We spent the first day on the Swan slab perfecting our multi-pitch technique and learning how to climb crack (Graham also had never climbed outside before so he had to figure that out too). We woke up at 4 am in Camp 4 the next morning and got to the base of the climb before anyone else. About 5 pitches up, we noticed a line of 4 to 6 other groups just waiting to get on the wall but we were cruising through and made it up to the top a little after 1 pm. Did the approach, climb, and decent in just under 12 hours car to car on September 19, 2017.