Walking the Plank on Half Dome's Thank God Ledge
Occurred on July 3, 2021 / Yosemite National Park, California, USA
Info from Licensor: "I am a rock climber from Boulder, Colorado. I have been climbing for five years, in which I have gravitated toward bigwall and speed climbing. I climbed el capitan in a day in 2020, finishing the Nose in 20 hours. This Spring I wanted to climb half dome in a single push, while most parties end up spending multiple days to get up to the base, sleep, climb, and then hike out. This climb isn't technically that challenging, although there are caveats to the ascent that prove to be difficult. You can climb the first half mostly using just feet and hands, however the last half has blank sections of rock where you need to clip your gear to bolts or other gear in the wall to ascend. In 2017, a large chunk of rock fell off, and now there is one section where you have to tie a knot in the end of the rope and throw it into a crack 15-20ish feet away. Then once you get it stuck, you pull yourself over! The ledge which this video features is Thank God Ledge, which Alex Honnold made famous with his shot on Nat Geo during a free solo of Half Dome. It is almost perfectly flat, and as you cross - it gets narrower and the wall pushes you outwards, just enough to be extremely precarious at the most narrow part. You would typically have to face outward and feel like you are 4500 feet up in space as you side step across. Some people crawl or use their hands on their ledge instead of walking. This video is taken at the beginning of the ledge... beginning the walk across. We finished the route from base to top in 6 hours and 16 minutes."
