Climbing is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off

[lizolas]

Tuolumne June 16-17, 2018

After finding out that Ben had never been to Tuolumne because he moved to the Bay Area after 120 closed last fall, I suggested a trip there; he agreed and proposed a trip to do Echo Peaks, then created a route with a loop traverse of several things in the Cathedral Range. I deemed this acceptable as long as we got to make a detour to Elizabeth Lake – I’ve been meaning to get there for 2 years now and hadn’t made it yet. We left Sunnyvale at 8, got stuck in traffic anyway, and made it to Hardin Flat Road at 12:30. We woke up to the 5:30 alarm the next morning and drove the rest of the way to the Cathedral Lakes Trailhead where we had breakfast and got our gear organized. We’d previously discussed taking ropes and harnesses along for the more technical Echo Peaks, but decided to leave that behind and just scramble whatever we felt comfortable with. I was expecting a lot of me telling him to go on ahead because he was way more comfortable than I was, but there was only one thing during the whole day that I couldn’t do the same way he did.

Starting up the trail at 7:40, we headed toward the Cathedral Peak approach – or so I thought. I somehow missed the usual turnoff from the JMT, but that was fine because Ben had other plans and hadn’t been looking for the approach trail anyway. We turned off the JMT at the point where it was closest to the rocks that seemed to be the back side of Cathedral Peak. It turns out that I have a lot of work to do in trusting my feet. While Ben was just about running over some low-angle slabs, I was going so slowly that he decided we needed to turn around and find a different way across. We reached a point where he suggested we ditch the packs, go up as far as possible, and then come back for them. That seemed reasonable, as we weren’t planning to summit Cathedral Peak. When I got a bit higher, though, I was pretty sure that I could see Cathedral Peak off in the distance, much farther away than we’d want to retrace to get our packs. Ben agreed with that assessment when he got to where I was, and we went back for the packs. “This is the approach!” “This is an approach.” “True.” Ben’s primary training goal at the moment was developing all-around competence for the Teton Grand Traverse later in the summer, so off-trail navigation was part of the preparation. We continued along the ridge we were on a couple hundred feet below the top, not wanting to head straight for the crest only to have to do a lot of up and down.

View from the notch, with (L to R) Unicorn Peak, unnamed choss piles, Cockscomb, and Echo Ridge in the distance

Eventually we could see that we were right below Cathedral Peak, and came across a use trail as we got around to the southeast side (the usual approach/descent side). We took the trail up to the terminus at the notch and stopped for a snack/water break. A short time later we were heading up, planning to just go until we felt too uncomfortable to continue unroped, then downclimbing the way we’d come. We didn’t take the exact Mountaineer’s Route, but did a mostly 3rd with some 4th class scramble near the edge on the climber’s left side of that face.

Our approximate route in dark green

There was one move that was probably 5th class the way I did it, but it was a heel hook and mantle on a huge jug that felt totally secure. To our surprise, we quickly found ourselves just below the last bit to the summit. We weren’t expecting to get that far – I remembered thinking the downclimbing was absolutely terrifying the last time I was there, and would have been impossible if we hadn’t been rappelling. In hindsight, that was 2 years ago, during a rainstorm, and on my first big outdoor trip. What I remembered as being a move with no handholds on a steeply sloping block (which we belayed, in light of the rainstorm happening) was actually a perfectly good finger crack hold on a mildly slanted block.

Eichorn’s Pinnacle

At the notch before the summit we met Nolan, who recognized Ben from the gym. We talked to him for a while before heading up to the summit. It’s about 5 moves of no more than 5.6, and all of it felt really secure to me, even on the way back down. Given that I think my limit on lead is 5.6 in Yosemite, and I was doing this in approach shoes, this surprised me. I was excited to have finally made it up Cathedral Peak after having to bail off so near the summit 2 years prior. I realized that due to Henrique’s creative routefinding to avoid other parties that time and the wet rocks at the end of the last pitch, I haven’t even followed the route clean, so it’s still on my to-do list to lead at some point.

Summit selfie on Cathedral Peak! First accomplishment of the day.

On the way back down, none of the moves felt that much harder than they had going up, and we were soon back where we left our packs. We took the signed climber’s descent trail down, passing droves of people headed up to the already-crowded Southeast Buttress route. We were very glad we weren’t waiting in line for that, and Ben kept telling people there was an easier way around back with no line (the people who’d gone to all the trouble of hauling ropes and gear up didn’t seem very tempted, though). When we were roughly in line with a good path toward Echo Peaks, we left the trail. The nice thing about cross-country travel in this area is there aren’t forests obscuring the view, and the only navigation you need to do is pick the most sensible line of travel toward your next objective.

Echo Peaks from the east side where we started climbing

Once at Echo Peaks, we climbed the closest, easiest ones (#0, 5, and 7), then made a plan to head for #3, which is the highest. We climbed (as far as we could tell) peaks #0, 1, 2, 2.5, 3, 5 and 7, leaving the most technical and farthest-away ones for another time. It turns out that I like exposure a lot more than most people do. Ben was very concerned on the exposed ridge parts, while I was fine with exposure but more nervous anywhere the holds weren’t huge jugs. The final bit of descending involved what Ben called a 5.6 chimney downclimb. I insisted that I barely even upclimb 5.6. Then I had the realization that I think I only climb 5.6 because outside, my idea of climbing something is “something I can reverse all the moves on in a perfectly controlled manner.” If I were willing to climb things where every other move wasn’t a rest stance, and some moves were too hard to reverse, I could probably climb a lot harder than 5.6 outside. Echo Peaks was the most fun part of the day for me, especially #3 with the longest stretch of easy 3rd class climbing to the top. All of what we did on Echo Peaks was fairly easy, and after we got to the summit of #3 we headed back to the sandy flat area between Echo Peaks and Echo Ridge where we had a lunch break at about 2.

Ben reading the summit register on Echo Peak 3 with Matthes Crest in the background

At 11,168’, Echo Ridge is actually higher than any of the Echo Peaks (#3 is 10,965’) as well as deceptively easy looking from the west side. From Echo Peaks, it’s an entirely 2nd class walk up to the highest point. Then it quickly transitions to “stiff 4th class” on the other side. The only scrambling move that day that I was scared of was along this portion. Ben was also not terribly happy on this portion, but his unhappiness was for the exposed ridge scooting just before what I thought was the crux. For me, the hardest move involved hanging onto a great flake with my left hand and carefully reaching down with my right hand to grab the huge flake I was standing on. My arms weren’t quite long enough to span the distance, so there was one terrifying second of awkwardly leaning over without holding onto anything while I moved toward the foot ledge. From there it was an easy step down and swing around the corner onto a larger ledge, where I prepared to talk Ben through the move. It turns out you don’t need all that fancy finagling if your arms are a bit longer. Ben reached down to the foot ledge while still holding the higher jug without any problem. After that, there was another stretch of traversing where the hand holds were more like really good flat-topped slopers than jugs. They were better than I expected, but only because the feet were also great. Next up was a chimney downclimb, for which Ben went first and then directed me to the footholds I couldn’t quite see as I went down. We eventually reached the end of the tricky climbing on that feature, at which point Ben proclaimed “Well, that was character-building!” It was indeed.

Had we bothered to look up much information about the route before we left, we would have found the SummitPost article which clearly states that the ridge is 2nd class from Echo Peaks and 4th on the other side. The unexpected terrain we encountered was part of the adventure though, and I’d like to try more things where I don’t look up beta for every single move in advance.

Cathedral Peak from somewhere between Echo Peaks and Cockscomb

On to Cockscomb next – a relatively small ridge supposedly 2nd-3rd class up to the top. We didn’t actually go to the top, because there was a group of about 6 already on it, and we didn’t feel strongly about summitting something so uninspiring. The downclimb here turned out to be the hardest part of the day. I’m sure somewhere on the rest of the formation there was an easier way down – we could definitely have reversed the way we came up and just walked around the base – but we sure didn’t take it. We started looking for a downclimb on the other side of the notch we came up, where there was a cord and carabiner rappel anchor in place. Ben found a way down that he didn’t seem very excited about, but it worked for him. I tried to follow, but couldn’t get the “smear on the left side with your butt on the right side” move to feel like it didn’t have too much chance of me falling (see Figure 1). I went back up to the next ledge just as the other group was coming down.

Figure 1

The most experienced seeming member of their party downclimbed just on the other side of where Ben had gone, pronounced it 5.7, and then helped his group down. I decided to try that way, and he also helped me when I got to the last move where you hang onto a really nice jug, but if you’re shorter than he is, your feet don’t quite reach the big ledge below you. His spotting technique was to push the climber into the wall, ensuring they landed on the ledge when they dropped off the jug. Well, that was sort of embarrassing to not be able to downclimb myself, but definitely preferable to having fallen to my death and probably knocking Ben down with me, had I tried his way down.

”Look at that choss pile. Definitely not worth climbing; it doesn’t even have a name. I’m going to name it Elizabeth Peak.”

At that point, we decided to forego Unicorn Peak and just head down to Elizabeth Lake, from which we’d take the trail back to the road and go back toward our car. This was the only part of the day with some thought-provoking routefinding, as the forest started just above the saddle that we needed to descend through to get to the lake. Between reading the topo and using some judgment about what we saw, we gradually picked a way down to the saddle, then continued finding the way down to the lake. Up til this point, we hadn’t actually seen the lake, and in telling people what our planned descent route was, I kept saying “We’re told there’s a lake somewhere down there!” Finally, about halfway down the gully we were descending, the lake came into view, and there was much rejoicing. In a few minutes we were at the lake where we quickly took some pictures before retreating from the swarms of mosquitoes.

Elizabeth Lake

Elizabeth fighting mosquitoes at Elizabeth Lake

After a day of cross-country travel, the trail was a welcome finale. “And now for what we’re best at: walking fast on flat trails.” The other crux of the day for me may have been finding a place to jump across the “caulk the wagons and float” creek crossing without falling in, but we both made it eventually. We took the trail back almost to the campground, then continued on another trail to the Visitor Center rather than taking the road the whole way. At the Visitor Center we continued to the road and arrived at the car soon after. I was impressed that the brand new approach shoes I’d gotten from Sierra Trading Post at Lani’s recommendation had worked so well. No blisters, and no discomfort beyond what I’d expect from any shoes for what we’d done that day. They’re Adidas, so they have 5.10 Stealth rubber soles, without the usual 5.10 extremely wide foot fit.

For dinner, we decided to go to the Mobil Station (Ben found the fish tacos to not live up to their “World’s Best” reputation) and slept there so we’d be at 7,000’ rather than 9,000’ at the turnout just outside the park. We went to bed by 9:30, and despite being incredibly tired, I slept awfully and laid awake for several hours during the night. The upside of this was that I got to watch the sunrise from the van; the downside was that I was still tired the next day when we got up for breakfast at 6:15. The plan for Sunday was a relatively easy half-day with a new personal highpoint and first 13-er for Ben. He’d also achieved a new personal highpoint on Saturday with Echo Ridge. 10,000’+ peaks are pretty easy to find in the High Sierra.

Mt Dana is actually that thing in the middle that’s farther back so it looks almost shorter than the peak on the left.

We started up Mt Dana at 7:40, feeling fairly good considering our prior day’s activities but slowing gradually as the trail steepened and got rockier. We saw Nolan again, on his way down from climbing the couloir, and stopped to talk to him for a few minutes. I continued feeling fine, just out of breath, until shortly after we split up so I could avoid the snow. I started feeling dizzy – maybe I’d been feeling that way all along and only noticed it while trying to balance on boulders and talus – and kept stopping while slowly making my way up along the ridge to the far left. I thought I was falling hopelessly behind, but it turned out that Ben was only on the summit for about 10 minutes before I got there. For never having been above 11,000 feet before (and the 11,000 feet was achieved just the day prior), he did great, although beating me to the summit is a pretty low bar. It had taken me exactly 2:30 to summit; he took 2:18.

By the time I got there, he’d figured out all the nearby peaks and made friends with the other people on the summit


One of the survey monuments at the summit. I know there’s another one, but I think it was buried under snow this time.

View toward Mono Lake from Dana

On the way down we stayed together and I found out that the snow I’d been scared of actually felt secure even in approach shoes. We reached the trailhead just barely under 4 hours from when we left – a respectable time with plenty of room for improvement. We made lunch out of the pasta intended for dinner the night before, then drove home; I even finished my entire half of the pasta by halfway through the drive. More traffic than expected meant despite leaving Tuolumne at noon, we didn’t get to Sunnyvale until just after 6. Still early enough to go to bed at 9 and sleep for more than 8 hours for once.

Lessons Learned:

• I have actually made climbing progress in the past 2 years. I’m so much better at recognizing holds and how to use them than I was when I’d only been climbing in the gym for under a year. Climbing without a rope this time allowed me to see how comfortable I’ve gotten with moves that I would have found terrifying before.
• I have a lot more progress to make, both technically and non-technically. Non-technically, my baseline fitness is nowhere near what I’d like it to be. I’d like to be able to get up Dana without feeling like I’m dying. Technically, I need to be able to trust my feet more when moving on slabs or snow. Everything we were doing that I found concerning was terrain that Ben was literally running across with no difficulty. I’m good at awareness of general orientations (“this can’t be the southeast buttress, because we’re on the northeast side”), but should at some point in the near future try to improve my routefinding and compass/map reading skills for less obvious things.
• There’s always more progress to be made. While we were admiring Nolan’s speed and skill, he was telling us about how this was him training to “get [his] shit together” for an upcoming trip with a buddy who runs up mountains and can easily gain 3-4,000 vertical feet an hour.
• Consider modifying your plan as you go to fit time constraints. Of course every plan starts with an estimate of the time required, but when you’re not moving steadily on a trail it’s hard to plan all that accurately. We were trying to get back to the car by 5 or 6 pm, and stopped to assess our progress multiple times. First, at Echo Peaks, we decided that we wanted to finish the ridgeline to #3, but didn’t care to go as far as #4 before moving on; later, we decided that we didn’t really need to summit Cockscomb and that we were ok with skipping Unicorn completely in favor of getting back while it was still light. Since the goal was just to go out for a full day of moderate ass-kicking, we didn’t feel like we’d missed out on anything when we were done.

Our path as told by Strava