9:18 hrs on Half Dome's Regular route (VI 5.9 C1)

 After Rebecca left I met up with fellow Mountain Madness guide Rob Schiesser. We began talking about what to climb together in the Curry Village over flow parking lot. Then of course we both looked up and saw Half Dome (VI 5.9 C1 23 pitches). We Both hadn't climbed the formation but wanted to badly especially the Regular Northwest face. So we racked up and started walking up to the base arriving a hour or so before dark. There where 6 parties biving at the base planning on starting the next morning, AAHHHHH.

 I had walked up to the Base of Half Dome to climb the Regular route once two years ago with Ryan O'Connell and Graham Zimmerman but the same thing had happened, this time both Rob I were more confident and more determined. We talked to the group and the earliest team was planning on starting around 5am so we would start at 4:30ish, and wake up at 3:50am (bumming). That didn't go over well at first but we assured them that we would be fast and if they caught us then we would stop and let them pass, luckily we climbed nearly twice as fast as them and it was never an issue

 This is Rob starting pitch 9, the first pitch of his block and the first pitch in the light. I climbed the first 8 pitches in 2.5 hrs entirely in the dark (So sorry no pictures) short fixing the entire way.

 Rob on the bolt ladder on pitch 10 right before the "Robbins Traverse"

Rob on pitch 13's chimney, the first of three, yeah Rob!!!!

Farther up the same pitch

 Here is Rob on pitch 14, 5.9 squeeze or 5.7 R SUPER AIRY

Rob on the same pitch. pretty wicked, jugging these pitches was hard!!!

The View from up high

So Rob's block ended on Big Sandy ledge on the top of pitch 17 and it was only 10:30 in the morning, crazy. The team that was skeptical about letting us go first was 8 pitches below us. Here I am leading the Zig Zags on pitch 19. We topped out around 2:00pm in the afternoon. We hung out on top for more than an hour it was Awesome. The Cables where down so the only other people who where up there was a group that climbed Snake Dike. After our pleasant summit hang out we started down and ran into Ben Mitchell coming up the Cables (which where down at the time).  We would have had plenty of time to make it down to the base and back down to the Valley floor before dark but we botched the descent and took the wrong gully down and cost us more than 2 extra hours to get back to the Base. Because it was almost dark and we where tired and had to place to stay we spent one more night at the base before walking down the Death Slabs in the morning.