Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome
climbing route, Yosemite, USA
The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome was the first Grade VI big wall climbing route in the United States. It was first climbed in 1957 by a team consisting of Royal Robbins, Mike Sherrick, and Jerry Gallwas. Its technical grade is VI 5.9 A1 as an aid climbing route and 5.12 (7b/+) as a fully free climbed route. It is recognized in the historic climbing text Fifty Classic Climbs of North America and considered a classic around the world.
Although the first ascent took five days, most ascents now are accomplished in two. The record for the fastest ascent of the route is 1:22 and was set during a free solo climbing ascent in late May 2012 by Alex Honnold, who had previously recorded the first free solo ascent in 2008. This improved on a longstanding record of 1:53 set in October 1999 by Jim Herson and Hans Florine.
History
All of the major walls and formations in Yosemite Valley had been climbed by the mid 1950s with the exception of the Northwest Face of Half Dome and El Capitan. El Capitan, with its intimidating 3000 foot face, was out of the question for at least a few years, leaving Half Dome, with a much more manageable 2000 foot face, as the logical next goal.
The first attempt to climb it was made in 1954 by Dick Long, Jim Wilson, and George Mandatory.
“Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome” enters the record as climbing route, Yosemite, USA. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Regular, Northwest and Face can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7309585. Authority coordinates are 37.746, -119.535. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 2012, 2008 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.