In a quest for the steepest, toughest climb in the area, a friend convinced me to hike the Half Dome trail in Pine Creek gorge on a brutally cold December morning. I think we succeeded; Half Dome is a dead end climb of around 1300’ in 0.5 miles.

We started from the end of Naval Run Rd, just south of the town of Slate Run. It was around 6°F when we started, enough to make my eyes water as soon as we got out of the car. The ~4" of snow was untracked almost all day. We headed south on the Pine Trail, which was decent if wet until Callahan Run. After this it because surprisingly sketchy, as it was often reduced to a narrow, sloping ribbon of icy trail, skirting a sheer rock wall to the right and a steep, long drop to the river on the left (pic#2). I’d like to revisit this without snow, since it was a unique and beautiful section of trail. The climb up Half Dome started abruptly once we hit Pine Run, veering off sharply to the right as Pine Trail continued upstream. The climb is brutally steep and relentless. We’re both reasonably fit, but climbing this 50% grade in dry, slick snow kick our asses. There were a few nice winter views along the way though, and a decent vista at the top. From here we took advantage of the winter and deer trails to bushwhack the ridge top over to Big Trail Rd and down Callahan Trail. Maybe we can blame the snow, but despite finding the sign and trailhead for Callahan Trail we essentially bushwhacked our way down the valley to the Black Forest Trail. We followed this back up to Hemlock Mountain for some nice vistas before dropping back down to Naval Run to end the day.