YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, California (AP): Two skiers sailed through a thin layer of snow with no margin of error along the precipitous shoulder of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park and skied alternately and abseil to the bottom of the valley in an unusually daring feat.
Jason Torlano, 45, and Zach Milligan, 40, completed the descent in five hours on Sunday by carefully cutting themselves in the crisp snow and using ropes to abseil through various sections of bare rock known as the “slabs of death “under the iconic Half Dome face, the Fresno bee reported Thursday.
“If you fall left or right, you’re definitely dead,” said JT Holmes, a freelance skier who is a friend of Torlano. “If you fall in the middle, you have a small chance of not falling to death, but maybe it’s something.”
Snowboarder Jim Zellers is believed to have been the first to descend the top section of 243 meters to the shoulder of the dome in 2000. But no one is known to have attempted the full descent of 1,463 meters. from the peak to the valley.
Torlano said he had dreamed of skiing the dome since his family moved to Yosemite when he was 5 years old.
He first climbed Half Dome when he was a young man, clinging to the same cables that tens of thousands of visitors make each year to ascend the high final slope by the rounded side of the polished granite feature. He advanced to become an elite group of climbers to climb the large surface of granite using ropes only to catch his fall at least a dozen times. He later became a ranger in the park.
“He’s always been there,” Torlano told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’m attracted to Half Dome for as long as I can remember.”
After also serving in the U.S. Army, he settled with his wife and children in a community near Yosemite. He specializes in the use of ropes to work in high altitude and dangerous environments.
He said he tried to ski Half Dome every three years, but canceled it after finding inadequate snow. This year, a storm in early February filled Yosemite with fresh dust, including about 7.6 inches of snow at Half Dome Peak.
He rented a friend’s small plane on Feb. 19 to study snow conditions and the possible route before calling Milligan, a climbing friend.
Milligan said he initially planned to film only Torlano’s skiing, but decided to make his own descent by carefully sliding the skis. He said things became dangerous when he skied down part of the cables and lost control before using an ice ax to stop the slide and was able to straighten up.
“I was trying to stay in control and stay alive,” Milligan said. “You’re on that spine and you don’t have much room for error.”