Good morning. It is Saturday, Aug. 17.
Here’s what’s happening in Opinion. Last month, 20-year-old Grace Rohloff slipped and died descending from the summit of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. This accident, though unquestionably tragic, was not unique: The final 400-foot ascent up the steep granite batholith, known to provide unsteady footing even on dry days, becomes horrifically slippery when it rains.
Hikers hold onto a set of cables bolted into the granite for the final ascent and initial hike down, but deaths caused by falls happen . Every responsible adventurer who has trained and prepared for the hike (and there are ample resources for this) knows this before taking a single step on the 16-mile round-trip journey from Yosemite Valley to the 8,800-foot peak. When wet weather arrives, as it did when Rohloff fell — and as it often does, unpredictably, in the mountains — the danger becomes much more acute.
What’s different now is that the victim’s father is calling for greater safety measures on Half Dome — specifically, for more wood slats to be placed beneath the cables so hikers can have better footing. That would, undoubtedly, make the final push up Half Dome less perilous — but as the several readers who sent us letters about Rohloff’s accident have said, that doesn’t mean we should pound more wood into the granite or do anything else to make the hike safer . About 95% of Yosemite is designated wilderness land , and the purpose of the National.