May 29-31, 2010 I camped with Kristian Eide, Marie Cardenas, Larry and Mila Wright, and Geir ??? in Yosemite Valley. We drove in Saturday the 29th, set up camp in Upper Pines, and went to try some short climbs in the Church Bowl. The first was to be Aunt Fanny's Pantry (5.4), the "unaesthetic chimney" shown here. The fallen tree apparently broke very recently--August 2009.
There was a group of three climbing the route including this woman from Utah, but they were done before we had time to finish setting up. They did later rappel as Kristian was leading, which made things tougher.
Another shot from the base. Here Kristian is leading while the leader of the other group has finished rapping and is untangling his ropes. I was picked to lead since 5.4 seemed a level I could comfortably lead, but I soon ran into a move that was awkward and difficult for me, and also poorly protected and would involve a serious fall if I screwed up. So I placed a couple pieces and came down, and Kristian led instead.
Kristian found the climb to be easy and only placed about 3 pieces the entire pitch. I found it to be mostly very easy, but there were a few surprisingly hard moves that I would have been unwilling to do on lead. Larry, who led the climb after we did it, and I agreed the 5.4 rating was more accurate if applied to an average of the moves rather than the hardest move. Kristian and I traversed to some other anchors (although short the traverse was more fun than the climb) and set up a top rope so he and Marie could try some 5.10a climbs while Larry and Mila climbed Aunt Fanny. We then went back to camp for dinner.
Sunday Larry and Mila went to Swan Slab to climb, while Kristian, Marie and I went to Five Open Books to climb Munginella (5.6), a 4 star climb they'd done before. Kristian would lead the first pitch and Marie the next two. We got there early but two other climbers were just ahead of us. Graciously they let us go first even though we were a party of 3. One guy was from Seattle with 30 years of climbing experience and I enjoyed talking with him at the first belay. Here is Kristian climbing the first pitch.
View from the belay. It was cramped and uncomfortable with three people.
Here's Marie about to lead the third pitch. This belay was even more cramped, so I climbed to an intermediate ledge to free up the first belay for the second party. We were lucky to start early because there were soon several parties queued up on the climb.
You can just make out the top of Yosemite Falls. The climb was indeed superb, one of the best I've done. I climbed last on every pitch so I didn't need to clean (except anchors) or belay, and could just enjoy the wonderful climbing. Interestingly none of the moves were as hard as the hardest ones on Aunt Fanny.
We then had to descend, which was mostly along a good quality climbing trail. However as it was early season with lots of water, we ran into the section the guidebook describes as "4th class (3rd when dry)". There were rap rings placed to get around it. It was quite wet, but Kristian tried downclimbing it and found it not hard, so Marie went down too. The wet section was beyond my comfort range and indeed I slipped, but luckily managed to smear my entire body and stop myself quickly. I got down with only a cut on my thumb, but I certainly would rap next time.
More great scenery.
We had finished by noon, so we went to Yosemite Village for lunch and still had the afternoon to kill. We decided to try hiking to Mirror Lake even though the full loop was closed due to recent rockfall from Awiyah Point (on the left). I hadn't gone to Mirror Lake in years and had completely forgotten how spectacular the NW face of Half Dome is seen from directly below.
I couldn't resist taking a ton of pictures of Half Dome and the "death slabs" leading up to the base of the NW face. I'd love to climb the slabs some day but still can't quite figure out the route.
I guess the easiest way is to perhaps go up the gully that starts in the left corner of this picture. I'll have to do more research. Apparently it's mostly 3rd class but with some short 4th and 5th class sections.
Here is where the trail ends on the Half Dome side of the lake. I went past this a little and could see the rockfall, but my picture didn't come out well.
There were some nice meadows on this side.
Again the view of Half Dome was awesome. We went back and had another nice dinner and went to bed early.
Monday we (except Larry and Mila) got up at 4am, broke camp, and drove to the Happy Isles traihead. Our goal was to hike to the summit of Clouds Rest, something I've never done before. We would have done Half Dome like last year but now there is a permit system for weekends and holidays. Actually due to the snow, however, the cables are still down so you could climb anyway if you could deal with that. Kristian's friend Geir joined us. Geir had skipped climbing and hiked the Yosemite Falls trail and Panorama trail the previous two days, the exact hikes I did two weeks previous.
Hard to see the cables with no supports and no people, but this is where they are.
We still hiked the first 5 miles of the trail to Half Dome, and here is the junction for the last 2 miles. It took all my effort not to be drawn that way.
From here the trail was new.
Kristian and Geir examine the map while Marie hydrates.
There were only small patches of snow lower down and we hoped for the best. We brought ski poles and I wore my mountaineering boots, which were surprisingly comfortable to hike in. I expected there might be a lot of snow near the summit and wanted to increase our odds of succeeding.
The trail was very high-quality, good compressed dirt with no rocks, rare for Yosemite.
I'm not exactly sure what this is. Probably an unnamed point before Clouds Rest.
As we got higher we started to get a hint of the spectacular views to come. This is the Clark Range with Mount Clark on the left.
One cool thing about this climb is being able to see Half Dome close up from above. Here we're still a little lower than the summit. You can see where the cables must be, and it seems snow is covering the area where the steep switchbacks must lead to the top of the subdome. But maybe it wasn't so bad, because some people we ran into claimed to have climbed to the top that day.
More cliffs on the way to Clouds Rest.
At some point, right around 9000 feet, snow suddenly covered everything. It was still hard and icy and a bit dangerous. I went out to this viewpoint of the Clark Range but it was a little precarious with a big dropoff to the right (not visible here) so I discouraged others from trying.
We used the GPS and found a safer way to proceed. There were boot tracks in the snow at most points but at some they seemed to die out (perhaps covered by recent snowfall, or the snow was just too hard to leave an impression). We knew we were on the right track when we reached this sign. One just beyond was nearly buried in the snow.
We were faced with a somewhat steep snow field where again the snow was rather hard and icy, but decided to try to continue up.
Not long after we could see the summit at last. The route to the top wasn't clear--I tried going to the right but that seemed too dangerous. Geir found the correct route to the left. There was actually a trail to the summit but about half of it was buried in steep hard snow. I left my pack and poles at the base and avoiding the snow scrambled up 3rd class rock. But then I went down, got my stuff, and went back up the snow/trail way, so I got to try both variations.
Scenery on the summit was breathtaking, and Clouds Rest lived up to its reputation. This is the best viewpoint I've been to in Yosemite, and it didn't hurt that there was still snow everywhere and that the air was exceptionally clear. Not only can you see Yosemite Valley here, but also the Central Valley and Coast Range in the distance.
The Clark Range in all its glory.
And what a shock to see the view to the north! The summit of Clouds Rest was narrow with steep dropoffs, but luckily the snow was soft and the footing secure.
Geir took this picture of me on the summit.
Kristian took some closeup pictures of various features when I went down to get my pack. Here is Tenaya Peak.
Tenaya Lake
Matthes Crest (I think), which we plan to try climbing at the end of the summer.
There were a couple backpackers from Seattle on the summit when we got there, so we asked them to take a group picture of us.
The snow had softened by the time we descended and it was safe and fun to go down--we could even boot glissade in parts. I couldn't resist one more picture of Vernal Falls as we descended the Mist Trail. We were tired and sore by the end, but it was a fantastic hike, on par with Half Dome itself. The snow travel at the end and unsurpassed scenery made it especially worthwhile.
Here's the route measured by GPS. The watch said 17.7 miles but Topo says 19, which is probably more accurate. You gain almost 6000 feet from the Valley floor to 9921 foot Clouds Rest, the highest point on the rim of the Valley. I guessed the hike would take us about 10 hours and we finished in 9:59!
