Half Dome, Northwest Face. In August, Doug Robinson, Dennis Hen- nek, and I climbed the normal route entirely on nuts and runners. We avoided fixed pitons in all places except for a tension traverse on the first zig-zag where a nut placement would have necessitated the hammering out of a ring angle fixed by the 1957 first-ascent party. We were able to free-climb over 80% of the route without climbing anything harder than F9.

Galen Rowell