BURST
It felt inevitable from the start. In the first week of June, Yosemite guidebook author Erik Sloan added 16 bolts to an alternative first pitch and two original pitches of the notoriously runout Snake Dike (5.7 R; 800ft) on Half Dome. His actions revived a fierce debate over ethics, danger, and collective ownership, with Yosemite Stonemaster John Long and many others weighing in on what the 1965 classic route symbolizes.
Now, as of June 21, two climbers have chopped all 16 of the new bolts, restoring the route to its pre-June 2026 state.
“Each day, more people were climbing the route using the extra bolts,” says Darion Maltby, a 30-year-old climber from the Bay Area and one of the two choppers. “I didn’t want to have Sloan’s sport bolting of Snake Dike to become normalized. So I acted.”
On June 17, Maltby removed all five of Sloan’s new bolts, plus a new “bail station” anchor, from the alternative first pitch to the left of Snake Dike’s original (Sloan had left the original pitch one untouched). Some time between then and June 21, Maltby returned with a friend, whom he declined to name, to strip the rest of the bolts from pitches two and three. He confirmed with Climbing that the “old bolts,” including the anchor bolts between pitches and the single bolt that protects the 5.7 slab move on pitch three, remain.
Maltby says he acted in accordance with the will of the community. “The climbing tribe’s voice on this is clear,” he told Climbing. “Sloan’s bolting is anathema to the spirit of Snake Dike in particular and of trad climbing in general.”
On June 24, visiting climber Kenneth Babenco climbed Snake Dike and was surprised to see that the new bolts were gone. “I actually drove there from Phoenix because I wanted my wife to get some experience leading moderate terrain,” he told Climbing yesterday. “But all the bolts were chopped, so I ended up leading the climb.”
According to email correspondence between Sloan and Climbing, the original retro-bolting was driven by a tragic 2022 accident, as well as first ascensionist Eric Beck’s open call to add more bolts. In 2022, Beck wrote in a Facebook post, “It may look like I want to defang the Snake Dike and bring it down to the lowest common denominator, but the Snake Dike is not a test piece. It has no fangs.” However, when Climbing spoke to Beck on June 10, he clarified that Sloan had gone too far. While he had not made this clear until the retrobolting incident, Beck stated that he had wanted four or five new bolts total on pitches three through five, but no new ones on pitch two. And he certainly disagreed with the eight bolts Sloan added to pitch three. “I would have thought [Sloan] would have more of a sense of discretion,” said Beck.
Maltby said he did not reach out to Beck before chopping Sloan’s bolts. “Beck’s voice is important, but the community’s consensus is more important,” he said, adding, “Beck didn’t climb Snake Dike alone. Maltby referenced a Facebook post from a friend of Jim Bridwell, who helped Beck establish the route but died in 2018. According to Maltby, the friend claimed that Bridwell would have opposed any new bolts. “I’d side with Bridwell, as his vision preserves both the rock as well as the adventure and challenge the route presents as it has for the past 60 years,” Maltby said.
After Maltby alone chopped Sloan’s bolts on the alternative first pitch, he left quarter-inch nubs of steel sticking out from the wall. “I worked with a friend to have some bolt extractors made, but I wasn’t able to have them ready by the time I went up last Sunday,” he said on June 17. However, according to a Mountain Project comment left by Charlie Molitor on June 23, the steel shafts have now been “filed flush to the granite” except for one sticking out at the beginning on pitch two.
The bolt-and-chop aggression may remind Yosemite history geeks of the bolt wars in the ’80s and ’90s. Climbing has reached out to the Yosemite climbing rangers for an on-the-record comment and has not yet received a response.
This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.
The post Exclusive: ‘Snake Dike’ Chopper Explains Why He Removed the Route’s New Bolts appeared first on Climbing.