Standard descent of half dome when cables are down?

Hey y'all. Planning a trip to the Valley in early March and am planning to climb snake dike. For some reason I'm having a hard time finding descent info without the cables. Is it usually just rapping the route? Thanks.

You go down the cables sir. The park service takes down the steel poles. The cables remain . Shady side of the half dome.. You might have to dig those cables out of some snow. Hand over hand like they did in the old days. Buena suerte.

You can rap off the cable anchors 

Ryan Callahan wrote: Hey y'all. Planning a trip to the Valley in early March and am planning to climb snake dike. For some reason I'm having a hard time finding descent info without the cables. Is it usually just rapping the route? Thanks

I've heard some horror stories of getting down the cables when they're buried in snow/ice. 

Early March seems awfully early, even IF the route itself is clean of snow. The walk off from HD is via the cables and Little Yosemite Valley, and the trail that passes Nevada and Vernal Falls. Extremely high likelihood of deep snow and even ice in those areas. 

Also- if you were to rap back down the route, you would need 2 ropes, and would have to leave many slings/biners. None of the anchors have rap rings/chains. I once bootied 5 complete anchor setups off the route from someone bailing. 

How important is Snake Dike to you? You should consider climbing another route with a safer descent at that time of year.

If you do go for it anyway, be prepared to accept the significant amount of risk you will be putting on yourself and your partner. It would make me sad to see another YNP climber death.

I did the cables in October maybe November I forget exactly but the cables were down. I remember thinking the descent was more sketch than the runouts. Anyway I did it wearing gloves and a prusik from my belay loop to the cable. You have to untie everytime you reach more cables like every 25ft maybe. Some closer. But idk if I would have wanted to do all this while its snowy or icy... and arroz is right, it was freezing and wet on the approach and this was months ago.. 

Bring a few prussiks to leave on the cables and do full length raps between your make shift anchor points on the cables. 

Sheesh everything yall are telling me makes me think I absolutely will not do half dome in March lol.

Did Snake Dike in March of 2015.  Very low precipitation year, 60 degrees in the valley, had the route all to ourselves, all of which was very awesome.  What was not very awesome at all was descending those cold, slippery cables.  Definitely the crux of the entire day. So not fun.

Señor Arroz wrote: Early March seems awfully early, even IF the route itself is clean of snow. The walk off from HD is via the cables and Little Yosemite Valley, and the trail that passes Nevada and Vernal Falls. Extremely high likelihood of deep snow and even ice in those areas. 

Not to mention that the Mist Trail is sometimes closed in the colder months due to avalanche danger. 

Snake HIKE is a completely over hyped climb.  

Marcelo wrote: Snake HIKE is a completely over hyped climb.  

Nah dude it’s a totally classic big wall climb.

Ryan Callahan wrote: Sheesh everything yall are telling me makes me think I absolutely will not do half dome in March lol.

I'm glad if you mean it. Snake Dike is totally worth it but NOT in snowy and especially NOT in icy conditions! I did it with my friend on May 11, 2019 and absolutely loved it. We prusiked down on cables and I found it so much more fun than walking down the cable stairs would have been (if the cables were up). The stone path after cables was still snowed in and quite scary to me (not to my partner, an experienced Yosemite climber and skier). I can only imagine how frozen and slippery they will be in March! Please wait till at least early May. And don't listen to those who discourage you from doing it altogether. I spent 17 hours on the trip (I'm a slow hiker) and absolutely loved each and every minute of it including seeing bears and a Marmot. That day weather was anticipated to be worse than it was so we had the route to ourselves, and there was nobody else on the top when we reached it. It was absolutely awesome. If I could relive the experience of doing it, I would!!!

I there is no snow burying the cables, a prusik would still be super cumbersome. When the cables are "down" you have to lift them up, which sucks your feet into the rock for even better purchase than if they were up. Super secure. I just used clipped into the cables with a biner on a sling. super fast and easy, and if i fell, id only go fifty feet before the next junction. But you wont fall. you'll be slightly nervouse and meticulous with every movement. Now if you DO climb it and they ARE buried in snow... let me see if i Can find Clint Cummin's stort on his experience with that...

Base jump

Unless there’s a lot of snow/ice on there descent, the cable route is mellow. If you use a runner to clip into the cables either via ferrata or prussic style, be sure it is dynamic. Done it several times in winter and it’s totally mellow except in the worse conditions —which you would already be going for plan B anyways. Bring a headlamp. 

For what it is worth I just looked at the cable descent from below sub-dome on 2/17 and the cables themselves are dry. The sketchy part looked like the trail down sub-dome below the cables which was snow covered and wet/loose by the time I got there. I would have gone down on micro-spikes if it were more solid looking and I had got there before the sun was on it so long. You could tell people had made it up and down so ymmv.

If there isn't significant snow in the next few weeks I bet the descent will be in great condition.

As far as the hike from happy isles it's all dry until the last half mile on the ridge up to sub-dome. Was a little annoying but not bad. We saw hikers in tennis shoes survive

Leave your climbing shoes on and use a two clip runner system.   Its still way sketchier than the climb for sure.  I'm surprised they still take it down after all these years knowing that climbers will need to use it.