Every summer, park rangers must assist hundreds of people on the Half Dome trail.
For most, it is an exciting, arduous hike for a few, it becomes more adventure than they bargained for. Today, thousands of people reach the summit.
Despite an 1865 report declaring it was 'perfectly inaccessible, being probably the only one of the prominent points about the Yosemite which never has been, and never will be, trodden by human foot,' George Anderson reached the summit in 1875, and in the process created the predecessor for today's cable route. Rising nearly 5,000 feet above Yosemite Valley and 8,800 feet above sea level, Half Dome is a Yosemite icon and a great challenge to many hikers.
