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.