Qualla: The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome https://qualla.com/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/d/y/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome https://qualla.com/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome: Introduction https://qualla.com/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome/ Photo credit Starlingjon (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Warren Harding hiked up the back of Half Dome to congratulate the men who had beaten him. It was June 1957, and Royal Robbins, Mike Sherrick, and Jerry Gallwas had just completed the first ascent of the Regular Northwest Face - five days on a 2,000-foot granite wall that nobody had managed to climb before. Harding had been planning his own attempt with Mark Powell and Bill "Dolt" Feuerer, but Robbins's team got there first. Rather than sulk, Harding walked the tourist trail to the summit and shook their hands. The sportsmanship was genuine, and it was also strategic: Harding would redirect his ambitions to El Capitan's 3,000-foot face, a climb that would take him sixteen months and make him the most controversial figure in American climbing. But on that day in June, the Northwest Face of Half Dome was enough. It was the first Grade VI big wall route in the United States, a climb so difficult and sustained that it required an entirely new rating category.

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Image: Starlingjon (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/d/y/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-wp/9qdy-the-regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome: The Apprenticeship of Failure https://qualla.com/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome/ Photo credit Starlingjon (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Half Dome's northwest face was not climbed on the first try, or the second. In 1954, Dick Long, Jim Wilson, and George Mandatory made the first attempt and retreated after gaining just 175 feet - barely higher than the tree line at the base. The wall was too steep, the cracks too...

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Image: Starlingjon (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/d/y/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-wp/9qdy-the-regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-the-apprenticeship-of-failure.mp3 0:06 2 full The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome: Five Days on the Wall https://qualla.com/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome/ Photo credit Starlingjon (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The three climbers left the ground on June 24, 1957, carrying enough food and water for a week. The Northwest Face is not vertical in the way El Capitan is vertical - it leans back slightly in places, offering occasional ledges and shelves - but the sustained difficulty was unlik...

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Image: Starlingjon (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/d/y/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-wp/9qdy-the-regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-five-days-on-the-wall.mp3 0:06 3 full The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome: From Five Days to Eighty-Two Minutes https://qualla.com/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome/ Photo credit Starlingjon (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. The history of the Regular Northwest Face is a story of compression. What took five days in 1957 took two days by the 1970s. In 1976, Art Higbee and Jim Erickson free-climbed the entire 24-pitch route at 5.12c after five years of ground-up attempts, one per year, making it likely...

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Image: Starlingjon (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/d/y/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-wp/9qdy-the-regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-from-five-days-to-eighty-two-minutes.mp3 0:06 4 full The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome: A Mountain Still Moving https://qualla.com/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome/ Photo credit Starlingjon (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Half Dome is not finished changing. Over the Fourth of July weekend in 2015, a major rockfall struck the Regular Northwest Face, severely altering pitches 10 and 11 - the middle section of the route that Robbins and his partners had climbed fifty-eight years earlier. In September...

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Image: Starlingjon (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/d/y/regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-wp/9qdy-the-regular-northwest-face-of-half-dome-a-mountain-still-moving.mp3 0:06 5 full