Ben and I woke up around 6AM on Sunday, feeling well rested. Ben made us coffee (from fresh home roasted beans no less, he’s quite the connoisseur), and ate his own nutritionally perfect, Mark Twight inspired extreme breakfast that was previously prepared at home - and probably included maltodextrin, oats, cocoa powder, and Himalayan send-berries hand picked by Sherpas. I on the other hand grabbed the breakfast sandwich from the Mobil. It was awesome. I still have a lot to learn from Ben :)

Since neither of us had climbed it before, we decided to give Eichorn’s Pinnacle’s West Pillar a go, via the Direct route at 10b. We joined all the other Bay Area cars with backcountry.com goat stickers (yup, I’m guilty too) at the Cathedral Lakes trailhead, and racked up. No sooner did I finish reading Supertopo’s line about how you are “unlikely to ever find crowds on this one”, did two guys from SF who parked behind us start the “so, what are you hoppin on today?” talk.

Yup, they were doin West Pillar as well. Fortunately, they were taking the usual variation, and they seemed friendly enough. Also, we were one Porta-Potty trip away from being ready to hit the trail, so it looked like we’d have first crack at the route.

We made pretty fast progress up the JMT toward Cathedral Lakes, passing several parties. About an hour in, Ben made a comment to me about an unusual amount of traffic with rock gear, since the turn off to climb Cathedral Peak comes about 10 minutes after the trailhead. (Cathedral Peak is both a spectacular climb/summit, and a rite of passage for every gumby 5.7 leader hankering for some alpine action. Trust me, I know.) I suggested it was probably people that botched the approach, and as soon as these words left my mouth, we turned the corner and were greeted by someone asking if he was on the right track to climb the SE Buttress on Cathedral. We informed him where the turnoff was, and continued on.

About five minutes later, the trail was covered in snow, and we stopped to survey, so as not to waste time getting off route. Before either of us made a suggestion, a cute blonde girl comes trotting down the snow toward us in barefoot running shoes, and asked where we were headed. She pretty much embodied about 10 outdoor companies’ ad campaigns, and I’m guessing works for SAR or the park service, and has a much cooler life than mine. She pointed us in the right direction, said she’d done the route and that it was awesome, then continued past us on her morning Cathedral loop. Unable to reach my spare rap ring in time to make a quick marriage proposal, we marched on.

We overshot where Supertopo told us to head off trail by maybe half a mile, but in the end I don’t think it made a ton of difference. After some slightly wet 3rd/maybe 4th slabs, we were at the base of the route, soaking up awesome early season views. Tuolumne really does kick ass.

The other two guys from SF caught up to us as Ben was taking off to lead the first pitch. I’ll spare the blow by blow account of the route, and just say that it was awesome - it had wide, it had knobs, hands, fingers, some exposure, and of course a great summit. In fact, it sported the fanciest summit register I’ve ever seen. Proof:

We spent about a half an hour on the summit, which was nice for me - the last time I was a few hundred yards over, on the summit of Cathedral, my partner and I enjoyed about 30 seconds of summit before busting our asses down to avoid a storm. We reached the base of the peak on our descent just in time to get graupelled on, and watch other parties deal with the weather from the summit (No thanks.)

Ben fights some 5.9 OW before the last pitch. We missed the 5.8 “rib wrestling” variation, apparently.

Speaking of descents, all the guide said was that a 70 foot rap would take us to 3rd class slabs that lead back to the JMT. Yeah right. Perhaps our route finding just sucked, but we definitely kept encountering 4th, and even a few moves of low 5th, on our way down. Extra fun in trail runners.

We made it back to the car before dark, grabbed dinner in Groveland, and hightailed it back to the Bay. A great weekend to end a first week of summer climbing. I was beat.

With the Valley consistently hot mid day, and my friend Ben heading out to climb with me for the weekend, Tuolumne seemed like the most logical choice. Sure enough, we didn’t see a lot of other people, except of course at the Cathedral Lake trailhead, which is pretty much the town bike of trail heads.

After a kinda cold night at Camp 9, we decided West Crack would be a good “warm up”. An ironic choice of words, given that, after the first pitch, my hands were numb and frigid to the touch. Shoulda waited for it to come out of the shade. With so much else around, I suggested rapping and heading up something sunnier (note - Ben did not share my bad circulation/”my fingies are too cold” syndrome.)

So we ended up on Lembert dome. We started with the “classic”, “odd”, Left Water crack. Why anyone would consider this climb classic, I don’t know, yet the guidebook called it one of the most popular climbs of the 50s (or 60s? who cares, what did those guys know.) After the first mini pitch of 5.6 slab, it’s pretty much just off-widthing/chimneying/contorting yourself up a weird 2-3 foot wide ditch. Let’s just say I won’t be running back for the Right Water Crack any time soon.

After that, the routes got better. We headed left a ways to “Megableam”, a bolted 5.10 pitch from the mid 80s. The hangers looked home made, but they were bomber, and I had the onsight. We pulled the rope so Ben could pink point it - gotta love high altitude sport climbing.

We set our sights next on the Direct NW face. The topo showed a steep 5.4 chimney that would take us down to 3rd class territory toward the base, letting us skip a long 3rd/4th class slab traverse off the dome and having to walk around the whole thing. I down climbed on TR, then set a quick anchor while Ben down climbed, just so he wouldn’t pitch off the whole dome if he fell. Five minutes later, we were at the base of the Direct NW.

What an amazing, and obvious line. I think it was close to 4 PM when we started, so we knew we couldn’t take our time about it. Supertopo describes the climb in 5 pitches, with the first two consisting of mostly 3rd class, then 5.6 climbing, before hitting the 5.9 business. I racked up, and quickly moved up the first two pitches, barely placing anything. With the majority of the rack left, Ben encouraged me to just keep going, with us simulclimbing.

With me not being a seasoned 5.9 leader, Ben stopped to give a more legit belay whenever I looked a little miffed. Nonetheless, the climbing went well, and I made it to a good ledge right before the first 10a section in about an hour from our start. After re-racking, I decided to give this bit a go.

Though not terribly difficult, the crux was going to be a big reach followed by a few powerful moves to a ledge. Not loving the Metolius 0 I had placed that was supposed to keep me from the ledge below, I burned my arms out contemplating going for it, then hung. After cursing myself out for not just going for it, and resting a minute, I fired the moves, and soon we were at the belay ledge before the true crux of the route.

(looking down from above the 10a section)

Ben being the stronger leader, and it being pretty late in the day, I relinquished the lead for the rest of the route. The section of 10c fingers above us proved to be quite hard. Hard enough, in fact, that Ben took a small fall, trying to pull it, which incidentally was the first fall I’ve caught not standing on the deck. An offset master cam worked perfectly however, and it was not exactly what you’d call a screamer. With the sun working its way South of the horizon, and us wanting to hike off with some light left, we decided to do like the French, and pull our way through this section on gear.

(our French free section of shame)

Though the climbing after that section still wasn’t trivial, it wasn’t too long before Ben had me on belay, and we topped out. I had never been on the summit of Lembert Dome before, and the views were fantastic. I’ll post some summit shots as pictures following this  post.

With beer on the brain, we double timed it down down the descent. My first relief was not seeing a bear fest going on at my car. Though I know better, we decided NOT to bear box my food, as there were no such boxes at the Lembert parking area, and we didn’t really want to waste time driving somewhere else for the purpose. While it worked out OK this time, I think I’ll always make the effort in the future. Not gonna lie, the thought of Yogi and pals feasting at my car was kind of gnawing at me during the hike off.

We made it to the Mobil just after close, and ended up eating at a BBQ place in Lee Vining. A good end to a fun day. We camped at a nice pull of near Mono lake, enjoying warmer temps, and the always fantastic East side views of the sky.