Gripped Magazine
Yosemite’s Famous Snake Dike is Getting More Bolts
A climber and guidebook author named Eric Sloan has shared on Mountain Project that he’s adding more bolts to Snake Dike, an eight-pitch 5.7 on Half Dome. It’s one of Yosemite’s most famous rock climbs. The first ascentionist Eric Beck always wanted the climb to have more bolts. Read Sloan’s post here and check out his guidebooks here.
Snake Dike was first climbed in 1965 by Beck, Jim Bridwell and Chris Fredericks, and it’s known for having extreme runouts between bolts. In 2022, a climber named Anna Parsons was in an accident on Snake Dike. The American Alpine Club noted in their report about it here: “Despite its moderate grade, Snake Dike is by no means casual. After completing the long approach, climbers are faced with about 2,000 feet of very run- out slab climbing.”
In 2024, Beck shared a letter where he said: “On the first ascent, we were continually expecting much harder climbing and were conserving our supply of 12 bolts as well as hoping to get down in a day… We left the route with single belay bolts and two protection bolts. We realized that this was totally inappropriate for a moderate route, which we could already see would be popular as it was so pretty.”
Regarding adding more bolts, Beck wrote: “We implored [Steve] Roper to add more bolts, which he did, admirably. He doubled all the belay bolts and added a protection bolt on the runout pitches… I asked other parties to add more bolts… Ideally, I would like to see five protection bolts where it is run out.”
Beck added: “It may look like I want to defang the Snake Dike and bring it down to the lowest common denominator, but the Snake Dike is not a test piece. It has no fangs. It is a lovely route on one of the great monoliths of our planet. Had we had more time and more bolts, we would have done it ourselves…
“There is a tradition with which I concur that the first ascent party should be the arbiter of style on a climb. Bridwell is gone and Chris has vanished from the climbing scene. So I am once again asking the climbing community add some more bolts to the Snake Dike.”
In 2017, Andy Selters wrote a history about Snake Dike, read it here, where he said, “Today, the old 1/4-inchers have been replaced with stout 3/8-inch stainless bolts. But the spacing as defined by Roper’s ascent remains scanty and serious, and there have been fatalities. Beck himself argues that more protection bolts should be added, but Snake Dike remains a Tuolumne-like challenge for runout-ready climbers on fair-weather days.”
Here in the Canadian Rockies, where I live, the tradition has always been that if the first ascensionist wants more bolts, the case is closed. Visit the comments on Van Life Climbing Influencer Greg’s post below to see what more climbers are saying.
UPDATE: First ascentionist Eric Beck pushes back against heavy retrobolting – read here.
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