CaT said "With or without the cables, "5.11 something" would be vertical (90-degree slope), and Half Dome is nowhere near vertical (a ~50-degree slope at one brief steepest point)."
CaT will all due respect, have you ever climbed in Yosemite? There are many 5.11 climbs on the Apron with 50 degree slope. I have actually read somewhere that the rock at the cables IS 5.11 and the rangers who used to put the cables up and take them down annually had to be very good climbers. I understand they just leave em up now.
It doesn't take steepness on glaciated smooth rock to make for danger or difficulty, otherwise people would be climbing up there rather than using the cables.
The horses took people to a point near the base of the cables so the rider could climb the cables, not the horses.
I have been up there when no one was on the cables, for good reason, the girl I was with had her hair standing straight out from her head from static from lightning, so we stopped at the base of the cables. The cables themselves are very dangerous because induction from even distant lightning can generate very high voltage.
Jim
