Half Dome Cables
Yosemite National Park · near Yosemite Valley / El Portal · Sierra Nevada / Yosemite
Via Ferrata
At a glance
- Route type
- cable-route
- Cost
- lottery
- Difficulty
- expert
- Best season
- Cables up ~May 22 – Oct 13, 2026 (weather-dependent targets); September weekdays are the calmest bet
What is here
- Amenities
- Bring your own grippy gloves (essential) · Wooden cross-boards every ~10 ft · Subdome granite stairway approach · Mist Trail & Nevada Fall en route
- Best for
- The bucket-list iron route of the Sierra
- Features
- Installed 1919 — predates most Alps via ferratas' fame in the US · The definitive Yosemite Valley panorama from the summit · Twin cables + stanchions + cross-boards · ~22% preseason / ~19% daily lottery odds
Worth knowing
- Hazards
- Deadly in wet or stormy weather — granite turns to glass; turn around if clouds build · Permit checkpoint at Subdome — no permit, no cables · Crowded cables create slow, committing traffic · This is an endurance event: 14–16 mi, 4,800+ ft, start pre-dawn
- Family friendly
- No
Via Ferrata detail
- Nickname
- California's original iron way (1919)
- Hardware
- cable · stairs
- Exposure
- 5
- Iron notes
- The most famous fixed-cable ascent in America — 400 vertical feet of twin steel cables up Half Dome's 45-degree granite shoulder, installed in 1919, at the end of a 14–16 mile day with ~4,800 ft of gain
- Logistics note
- Permit lottery required: preseason lottery March 1–31 (results mid-April) or daily lottery 2 days ahead on Recreation.gov; $10 application + $10/person; ~300 hikers/day
- No lottery
- No
- Intl tip
- America's original via-ferrata-style route: the 1919 twin cables up Half Dome's granite shoulder in Yosemite, at the end of a 14–16 mile, 4,800-ft day. You must win a permit lottery (apply in March, or the daily lottery 2 days ahead; $10 + $10/person). Bring grippy gloves, start pre-dawn, and never touch the cables in wet weather. Plan the whole trip around the permit, not the other way round.
The guide
Before California had a single commercial via ferrata, it had this: twin steel cables strung 400 vertical feet up the rounded g…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Half Dome Cables — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.7459, -119.5332