An Epic Bail on Quarter Dome
Three days ago Even Mann and I went to go climb a route called Pegasus on Quarter Dome, a formation tucked deep into Tenaya Canyon past Half Dome. We cruised the first part of the approach getting within a few hundred feet of the base in four hours but spent an additional three navigating sketchy snow slopes using nut tools as ice axes and moving slowly up wet/icy rock slabs before getting to dry rock. The approach was enough of an adventure but the true epic began on pitch seven when the sky opened up and it started to snow. There was no indication of precipitation in the forecast and with my naive assumption that the storm was gone after its first pass, we continued up soaking wet cracks in survival climbing mode. I made it one more pitch but quickly became soaked head to toe. The storm worsened as inches of snow began piling up on ledge systems and waterfalls formed alongside the wall we were attached to. We were completely saturated and began to shiver uncontrollably. We had no waterproof clothing, one 70 meter rope, one ATC, and no extra cord.
A significant portion of the route was traversing which means it’s very difficult to rappel, and on top of all of that, there were no fixed anchors other than two bolts at the top of pitch 8 which means we would have to leave our own gear behind in order to go down. We began bailing down, traversing snowy ledges while on belay when necessary, and leaving cams behind with no second thought. On the second rappel of what turned out to be 9, we put a huge core shot in the rope, thankfully quite close to the middle. We continued eventually deciding to cut down a corner system that was off route but more direct. It was a gamble choosing to venture down unknown terrain but it worked out. After each rap, my hands would go numb and I would have to put them under my arm pits to warm them back up. We made it down to the base of the route just as the storm was clearing and my mind was able to snap out of survival mode for enough time to take these two pictures.
Unable to reverse the sketchy slabs and snow on the approach, we choose to fix our rope to a tree near the base of the route and rap off a 200 foot cliff down into more unknown terrain. I tried to piece together a path down the approach slabs from a view higher up, but the path I scoped turned out to be a dead end and we got cliffed out just as it was getting dark. All we had left was 25 feet of rope that we cut from our single strand rap but somehow we managed to piece together a way down in a last move of desperation and perhaps some luck. We did a 12 foot rap off a small bush which deposited us at another bush at the edge of a cliff band. Evan was skeptical we had enough rope but with 4 slings plus our remaining 25 feet, we made it to the ground. We still had over a thousand vertical feet of scrambling to get down the slabs before finally getting back to a talus field covered in snow. We ran down the snow and made it back to familiar terrain at the banks of Tenaya Creek. We still had many miles of hiking to go, but luckily our rack was significantly lighter, and we didn’t have to carry a rope. We were still completely soaked and going fast was our only way to keep warm. We hustled down the trail and made it back to our cars a little after 11 pm being on the go for nearly 18 hours. We drove off to Curry Village for some warm showers, made some ramen, and passed out. Over $1000 of our gear was left during our bail and much of it is not retrievable being that it is completely off route, but neither of us have any qualms with that fact.
May 2021 Afterword
Alex Honnold and Colin Haley climbed Pegasus and bootied the gear we left on route during our bail. Honnold kindly gave it back to me. The rope was coiled up at the base and remains there as trash. I will retrieve it one day.
