My Kind Leader raised me to believe that a trip report just isn’t a Trip Report unless it involves suffering. Ideally, one embarks upon a climbing trip with some abstract stated goal (catharsis, revenge, self-knowledge), and ends up miserable, shivering and vowing never to go on another climbing trip. Let me say at the outset, then, that this is not a capital-T capital-R Trip Report. This is the other kind: a synopsis of an amazingly good weekend, during which none of the things that could have gone wrong did, and a good time was had by all.
Thursday
We began the trip by shopping for alpine boots for an upcoming trip. The first store we went to had a single pair of women’s alpine boots, which happened to be both massively on sale and in my size. There was virtually no traffic on the way down to Yosemite, and we arrived at the west gate well-fed and in plenty of time to rest up for the next day.
Friday
The plan was to climb the 10b variation of the West Tower of Eichhorn Pinnacle and then tag Cathedral Peak. Despite the gorgeous day and our “California alpine start”, which involved eating greasy breakfast sandwiches at Tuolumne Meadows Grill as hordes of climbers streamed past us, we had Eichorn to ourselves all day. The climbing was fun, the views were amazing, and the thunderstorms didn’t even threaten. The two or three parties that had been climbing Cathedral Peak were off the summit by the time we made it across the saddle, so we frolicked up to the top of Cathedral, regretted for the Nth time that we had both forgotten our cameras, and made our way back.
It seemed our bad luck was finally catching up to us when we couldn’t get dinner reservations and all of the campsites we passed were full. But no: our quasi-legal stay in a closed campground allowed for the best story of the entire weekend. (See “Saturday”.)
Saturday
I awoke with the sun, and the damned crows, and walked back up to the car to brush my teeth. As I brushed, I noticed a large, muddy hand-print on the driver’s side of the hood. A second glance revealed five round pads where one might expect fingers, and also a snout-shaped mucous smear on the driver’s side window. As one of our dinner companions later that evening would tell us, bears struggle with fine German craftsmanship; apparently our bear didn’t think a trunk full of energy bars was worth the effort.
With this astonishingly good omen under my belt, I prepared to tackle my first lead: Hobbit Book, on Mariuolumne Dome. We completed our second burly approach in as many days with no real errors, and no company. The climbing was not technically difficult, and I relaxed enough by the second pitch to really enjoy the intellectual challenge of placing gear. At the second belay station, My Kind Belay Slave asked whether I wanted to lead the next pitch, 25 feet of face climbing to a single bolt, followed by a 60-foot runout. Surprisingly, given my usual self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy, I did want to lead the next pitch.
The third pitch was one of the most fun and satisfying things I’ve ever done. The climbing matched the Supertopo description perfectly: more like a gym 510.a than a Tuolumne 5.7, with reachy moves better suited to 5’10 climbers (I’m 5’6). The combination of adrenaline and mental and physical puzzle-solving exemplified my Platonic Ideal of Climbing. The fourth pitch was also fun, and we managed to take one another’s pictures with Cathedral Peak and Eichorn Pinnacle in the background, making up for Friday’s oversight. On the way back, I let My Kind Leader resume his usual position for Seconds to Darkness, a fun and challenging single pitch of 5.8 crack. We made it back in time for both showers and dinner, and our dining companions generously left behind two glasses worth of a bottle of very nice Bordeaux.
Sunday
We wanted to climb Lucky Streaks on Fairview Dome. We half-heartedly planned Great Pumpkin as backup, in case Lucky Streaks was occupied, but in accordance with both the name of the climb and our trip to that point, there were three parties waiting for Great Pumpkin and no one on Lucky Streaks. Lucky Streaks consisted of six pitches of (and here I will quote MKL’s
Route Report) “continually interesting, steep, sustained climbing”, with gorgeous views of Mariuolumne and, for the third day in a row, absolutely fantastic weather. The descent was short, our car was un-mauled, and there was no traffic on the way out of the park.
On the way home we got pulled over, but the cop let us go when he found out we’d been in Yosemite. Lucky Streaks, indeed.
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