Cathedral Peak, Tuolumne - Southeast Face

Tuolumne Meadows is rad.  Yosemite is pretty rad overall.  This July we took a three-week road trip through Oregon and California.  The highlight of the trip for me (and Jacqueline) was climbing Cathedral Peak in Tuolumne.  The lowlight was when the Westy broke down getting over Tioga Pass to get to Tuolumne!  That's another story.  The interested reader should check out the blog my wife kept during our road trip, which is on WordPress entitled Finding Respite in the Mountains.  I digress.

Luckily, the van breakdown came at a pretty good time.  We had arranged to meet my mom and her friend Terry for several days while in Yosemite.  As a graduation gift from surgery residency, my mom bought us several nights' stay in the Tenaya Lodge (dope!) just outside the park.  Once we got all the van shenanigans sorted out of our systems, my mom agreed to watch our kids for a day and give the wife and I a day off.  After much hemming and hawing, she decided that Cathedral was too exposed for her and that we should spend the day cragging in the Valley.  We ended up going for a hike and not doing any cragging.  But that night she laid awake all night in bed regretting her decision not to do the alpine climb.  Thanks to my super-gracious and generous mom and her friend, they offered us a second chance the following day.  We jumped on it.

We loaded up our rental car and hit the road at 5:30am from Tenaya Lodge, and were starting the approach by 8am.  When you're used to Cascades alpine approaches, his was pretty cush.  After half an hour we had reached open terrain with views of our objective. 

First good view of Cathedral Peak on the approach

 Cathedral Peak is a classic Tuolumne moderate alpine outing.  The Southeast Buttress goes at 5.6 and has 4-5 pitches with many variations.  The rock is stellar white textured granite typical of Tuolumne.  The route was perfect for Jacqueline as it is mostly face climbing without an untoward amount of exposure, with good belay ledges, lots of traffic (other people are comforting in case something goes wrong), and moderate difficulty.

Jacqueline and I at the base of the route

 By the time we got to the base of the route, there was one party of two just heading out.  They were two fellas from New York, very friendly and encouraging to Jacqueline, and very helpful.  We followed them up Variation A, which is the most commonly climbed 5.6 variation.

Jac in her action suit

The Southeast Buttress: 5.6 with multiple variations (obviously)

 Jacqueline handled the route like a champ!  I made a special effort to keep my belays within sight of Jac, which helps her feel comfortable, which added a tiny amount of fuss to the climbing, but was worth it.

Jacqueline nears the top of pitch 1

Fun big flake on pitch 2

 The standard route ends up in a 5.6 chimney on the third pitch.  By the time we arrived to the ledge at its base, the leader of the New York duo was still finishing the pitch.  And by that time a pair of simulclimbers had arrived and had passed us.  They were waiting in line to head up the chimney.  I looked around climber's right and found a 5.7 corner that didn't look too bad, bypassing the chimney.  I ended up taking that, which went fine.  It was unprotectable for 20 feet, but the climbing was solid.  From there, it was just over one more pitch to the summit.  I could just make it to the top with rope stretch, but it had gotten breezy, and I would have been out of sight and earshot of Jacqueline.  So I set one more anchor and left the last 20 feet for a final 5th pitch.

Josh heads out on lead on pitch 4

Cool granite knobs

 Once on top, Jacqueline was elated!  She was so proud of her accomplishment, as was I!  5.6 rock climbing to a summit at 10,911 ft. is no joke. 

Jacqueline is stoked!

World peace, please

 The descent off Cathedral is pretty chill.  Jacqueline down-led one pitch of 4th class towards Eichorn's Pinnacle.  Which, by the way, is a pretty sweet looking little climb in and of itself.  I suggested tagging it on the way down, but was quickly shot down.  For good reason.  While the climbing is not hard - two pitches to 5.4, it is really exposed and has a tiny summit.  It would definitely be worth doing if I'm ever back there. 

Eichhorn's Pinnacle and Cathedral Lake

Our first alpine summit together since 2007

 The rest of the descent follows a third class gully down around the East side of the Peak.  It is pretty short so within an hour we were back at our packs. 

Sweet granite formations as seen on the descent

We were back at the car by 3pm.  Not in too big a hurry to get back to our whiny children, we took a swim in the Tuolumne River at a natural waterslide before heading back to the Tenaya Lodge.  What a killer outing!  A perfect day.  Tuolumne - I'll be back.

Mt. Rainier - Liberty Ridge

This week I completed a dream route.  One of those routes that every climber from the Northwest puts on a pedestal.  Considered a benchmark, climbing Liberty Ridge proves that the Northwest alpine climber is ready to head out onto difficult big mountain terrain.  I guess now I am too.

Matt Jillson and I below the route

Originally this was supposed to happen immediately after I finished my training in General Surgery on June 30.  But weather and partners required flexibility, and for the first time in 5 years I was able to comply!  We headed out on July 4 with a perfect weather forecast.  Due to requirements by the Mt. Rainier National Park to get a climbing permit, this climb that could potentially be doable in 2 days became a 3 day climb since you have to wait for the ranger station to open to get permits before you can set out.  So we arrived at the station a little early in order to ensure that we got permits, given the holiday and the popularity of the route.  That was a smart move.  When we arrived, we lined up behind a party of three that were trying a route on Curtis Ridge.  Behind us were several other parties heading for Lib Ridge.  In the parking lot, we met two guys - Matt Schweiker and Gerry Croteau, both Mountaineers members from Everett and Seattle, respectively.  We wished them luck and then headed out on the Glacier Basin trail.  After three miles of gentle trail, we emerged onto the Inter Glacier.

Inter Glacier

The heat was rising.  We slogged up a hot slope to reach St. Elmo's Pass and had lunch.  Shortly after arrival, the party of three including Tom Sjolseth heading for Curtis Ridge, and Matt and Gerry showed up.  We wished the Curtis Ridgers good luck and set out along with Matt and Gerry for the Winthrop Glacier.

Matt and Gerry follow across the Winthrop

We arrived at camp on the lower Curtis Ridge around 7200 ft. in the early afternoon.  A few wispy clouds rolled through in the early evening, but were of no concern.  We had a killer view of the ridge.  From our vantagepoint, the crux of the next day would be navigating the Carbon Glacier and accessing the toe of the ridge.  Gerry went to check out potential ways of gaining the lower Carbon from Curtis Ridge.  Steep, horribly loose chossy slopes led down to the moat, which was extremely broken up.  He found a car-sized boulder with some tatty slings around that obviously multiple parties had rapped from.  Matt was super nervous about the boulder, given that it sat on a slope with loose kitty litter pebbles.  Gerry spotted a crappy gully marked by a cairn.  He followed the loose ramp down and found that it would indeed work to gain the glacier.  Listening to him from above without being able to see him, it sounded like a war zone of rock fall.  But luckily due to its traversing nature, it all apparently got swallowed up by the moat.

Gerry and Matt assess the upper Carbon Glacier

Day 2 would be another short day since we only wanted to get to Thumb Rock at 10,750 ft., but we wanted to leave early in order to climb the steep slope above the bergschrund in the cold.  We set our alarm for 4:30.  We were moving an hour later.  At this point, we were planning on basically climbing with Matt and Gerry, but hadn't officially linked up yet.  In the back of Jillson's and my mind, we still wanted to beat them to Thumb Rock and get the best bivy site!

Last good view of the route in the early morning light

After descending the horrible ramp, we roped up to cross the moat and gain the Carbon Glacier.  The moat was pretty broken up and was bulletproof snice.  I led out and crossed some moderate terrain, placing two ice screws before reaching a flat spot and bringing Jillson out.

Jillson climbs out onto the Carbon Glacier

From there it was cruiser until we reached the upper Carbon.  Then it became extremely broken up.  Fortunately the footprints from previous parties were faintly visible which made routefinding easy.  A highly circuitous path finally led us to the climber's right side of the toe of the ridge and the bergschrund protecting its access.  We took a brief break.  It was around 8:30 am.  Matt and Gerry were right behind us.  I gave Jillson the lead, since I'd gotten to lead the transition to the Carbon Glacier, and he set out first.

Thumb Rock and the bergschrund

Jillson crosses the 'schrund

 Once above, he placed a single picket, and we cruised up 1500 ft. of nice neve to Thumb Rock, arriving at 10:00 am.  Gerry and Matt got there five minutes later.  We selected the flattest tent platform, but they may have gotten the best one.  Theirs hugged the base of Thumb Rock.  It was more sheltered, but required some digging.  What followed was one of the most chill days I've ever had in the mountains.  We napped, we ate, we drank, we shot the shit, we shot the shit, we shot the shit some more. 

Shooting the shit with Matt, Matt, and Gerry at Thumb Rock

A particularly humbling aspect of the day was watching the climbing rangers haul Nick Hall's body off the mountain.  Many of the details of his fall are still lacking.  But seeing the Chinooks hover around made it easy to remember that the most important component of the climb is coming home safe. 

Chinook helicopter looks for Nick Hall's packaged body

In the late afternoon, a middle-aged couple arrived that we'd seen in the parking lot.  Something was odd about them, and we wanted to make damn sure we were well ahead of them the following day.  In the evening just before dark, three Asian guys showed up as well.  The four of us were pretty icy toward all of them, since it seemed pretty dangerous for them to climb up to Thumb Rock on that steep sun-baked slope in the heat of the day.  After the entire day's ruminations, at this point we were an official foursome, but the rope teams were to remain the same.  But now entering the true technical climb we would stay together and help each other out if necessary.

Our third day on the mountain was just as stellar as the first two.  We woke up around 2:30 (after getting nearly 8 hrs' sleep!) and were moving within an hour.  We opted to take the climber's left option up out of Thumb Rock as Option B was looking a little thin for mixed climbing.  The left option was solidly frozen neve, to 50 degrees.  We made quick work of this section and were nearing the Black Pyramid by sunrise.  The other parties were just leaving camp as far as we could tell. 

Schweiker heads up toward the Black Pyramid

Above the Black Pyramid, we encountered one pitch of extremely hard, brittle ice.  This averaged 50 degrees, with a short bulge at the top to 60-70 degrees.  It might have been possible to bypass this section to the right or left, but at this point we were making good time, had perfect weather, were feeling good, and hadn't climbed any real ice yet.  We pitched it out.  Matt Schweiker led first.  It turned out that the low angle of the ice made this super tiring, and Gerry opted to walk around most of it on the snow since it wasn't as fun as it looked.  The upper bulge was fun, though.  Even though I have more water ice experience than Jillson, I let him have this lead, because I thought there was going to be another tricky pitch at the upper bergschrund which could have a short vertical ice section.  Jillson led it in good style, placing three screws.

Ice above the Black Pyramid

Midway up the ice pitch

 Above this section, we cruised again to reach the upper bergschrund on the Liberty Glacier.  The wind was starting to pick up, and we were getting blasted by some pretty good spindrift.  But we didn't find any more technical ice climbing.  Just a delicate little snow bridge crossing the 'schrund, and more steep snow to 50 degrees to reach Liberty Cap.

Jillson is over the 'schrund

At Liberty Cap Matt and I celebrated with relief at having finished the technical route.  What a feeling!  While we waited for Matt and Gerry, Jillson prepared for a little patriotic display to mark the occasion.  Matt and Gerry hadn't gotten their fill of ice, so they went directly up from the bergschrund to climb some 60-70 degree rime ice to reach Liberty Cap instead of traversing.

Matt and Gerry head up some rime ice around 13,500 ft.

Once they joined us at the Cap, Jillson surprised them by lighting off a firecracker that he'd hauled all the way up, forgetting to light it off on July 4!  Gerry almost had a heart attack since he had no idea this was coming!

Leave it to Jillson to pull something unexpected out of his pack!

From Liberty Cap to the saddle, something unexpected happened.  I had one of the most amazing "mountain moments" of my life.  All the sudden, while walking along on flat ground toward the saddle and the true summit, I was overtaken by emotion and started sobbing.  Literally sobbing.  I just raised both arms to God and started praying and crying and thanking Him for all that I'd been through in the last 5 years and this amazing way of celebrating.  Wow.

The moment passed.  And then I bonked.  Or something, I don't know what.  I think I was just done.   I hadn't even gotten that fatigued climbing the route at any point.  I think that I was just emotionally spent from the stress of anticipating the route, climbing it, then coming down off the emotional high and spiritual experience I had.  Upon reaching the saddle I untied from the rope and sat down.  I told Jillson I wasn't sure I was going to the summit, which lay 800 heartbreaking feet above us.  He wasn't having it and basically made me promise to push on, but agreed to let me untie and get there on my own at my own pace.  He scampered on up and I struggled on.  I eventually made it, 20 minutes or so after the rest of the guys.  Since my first summit of Rainier occurred in a complete whiteout in the middle of a lenticular cloud packing 50-60 mph winds, I guess the second trip up was worth it.  It was cold and slightly breezy.  It was 9:43 am, slightly over 6 hrs. from Thumb Rock.  This time I actually got a summit shot!

14,410 ft.

We signed the register (which I also hadn't done in 2009) and joined the hordes heading down the Winthrop/Emmons route.  There was one tricky crevasse system that had to be negotiated.  On it we found a party of four downclimbing it with massive loops of loose rope hanging around and no belay system whatsoever other than that they only had one person moving at a time with the others crouched down!  We shouted some advice to them which they ignored, and we proceeded to simul-solo down the opposite side of a big block of ice, staying blissfully out of view of them.  We took a long break at Camp Shurman, depositing our blue bags, and slogged/glissaded down the Inter Glacier back to the cars.  We were tired by the time we reached the cars, but not crushed.

As I reflect back on this beautiful classic route, I don't think it was that hard.  It probably can get harder depending on the conditions.  But I do think it lives us to its reputation because of the clean, direct line of the route, its inherent beauty, lack of crowds, moderate objective hazard, and entertaining climbing.

Concord Tower - North Face

So I just finished General Surgery residency!  Five years of hell are over.  And it is now "The Summer of Josh". For those of you who don't know, that is a little nod to Seinfeld.  What that means for me is two months of climbing, camping, fishing, traveling, sleeping in, reading, and just doing what I want.  My whole plan all along was to party hard the day I finished (which I did), spend the next day recovering, then head out on a big blowout climb.  The plan was Liberty Ridge on Rainier. That happened, but not according to my original timeline. Weather and partners fizzled, but I had a short window to climb some rock.  I decided to try to turn this into the annual alpine rock trip with my brother Tyson.  He likes short approaches and moderate climbing. Every year that has led us to Washington Pass, and this year was no exception.  I gave him two options: Southeast Buttress of Cutthroat Peak - short approach, but 11 pitches of climbing up to 5.8, vs. the Northwest Face of Kangaroo Temple - longer approach, 6 pitches up to 5.7.  To our dismay as we arrived at Washington Pass, both had issues.  There was still a lot of snow up high.  So much that the route on Cutthroat could have snow on the route, and the approach to Kangaroo would certainly take longer.  I had Selected Climbs in the car, and after a short deliberation, we changed course and opted for a Liberty Bell/Concord combo. We would start with Concord since we'd both done Liberty Bell before.

Lots of snow on Cutthroat

We made quick work of the approach, despite the fact that I was doing it in bald approach shoes and lacking an ice axe. There was a group of three Canadians doing the Beckey Route, which only affirmed our decision to start with Concord.  The North Face is a fun little route, which departs from the same notch. The climb is only 2.5 pitches, which goes at 5.6. It is a sweet little combo with Liberty Bell, giving the climber two alpine summits easily doable in a day with only one approach and 7 pitches of climbing.

Liberty Bell, Concord, and Lexington Towers from the approach

Tyson nears the top of the approach gully

The climbing was fun and mellow, although a bit wandery.  The rock was solid, but most of the holds were downsloping.  The first two pitches go at 5.6, and there are nice big belay ledges.

Tyson follows the second pitch

Apparently, the topout pitch goes straight up an improbable crack.  It is relatively short, probably 20 feet, but steep to overhanging.  And a fall might result in a deck.  So I looked for an alternate route.  I found that poking around left, I came to an exposed arete that led to the summit.  There was no protection, but this section was shorter, probably 15 feet.  I decided to punch it out.  I'm much more comfortable with hard face climbing than overhanging cracks, so there it is.  It went, but it was probable 5.7 to 5.8.

Tyson reaches hard for the topout on the final crux arete.  The hairpin is far below.

We enjoyed the summit ambience.  The thing I love about the Liberty Group is their close proximity to one another.  We were able to watch the three Canucks go a completely wrong way on the Beckey Route.  I offered beta, but they didn't want it.  I think they made it up okay.

Tyson enjoys the small summit, with Lexington, NEWS, and SEWS behind

Me on the summit

Tyson on the summit with Liberty Bell

On the summit I started to prepare mentally for rapelling the route, having lunch at the notch, and starting up the Beckey Route.  But it was not to be.  Tyson informed me that he was spent, and wanted to head back to the car.  I was not that crushed, since Liberty Bell would have been a repeat.  It meant an easier day than usual in the alpine, since we'd likely be back to the cars by early afternoon and back home in Seattle long before dark.  That didn't sound too bad.  On the way back home we stopped at Good Food in Marblemount.  I don't know why I ever go to that place.  I'm not going back.  It's run by the trashiest white trash family I've ever seen.  The dirty kids just play in the "dining room" the whole time and annoy people and get yelled at constantly by their parents who don't pay any attention to them.  And the burgers suck, although the fries and shakes are fine.  It must be that I'm usually ravenous when I get there, which was not the case today.  From now on, I'm going elsewhere.