“ARE YOU HEADED up the chimney?” the climber bellowed from 300 feet below me, his voice damply echoing up the white fifty degree slope. Strike-two?
Strike-one had been the East Arête, a narrow, exposed ridge running up to the summit that was supposedly the easiest route to the summit – a straightforward “Class 3 scramble”, said the guidebook. No biggie. So I headed that way, doing ‘20-20s’ – twenty steps up, twenty breaths break; alternating water, organic gummy bears, and bites of a blueberry Clif bar. Feed the monster!...as they say.
Finally popping off the snowy slope and onto rocky land, I felt great. Now I had solid rock to climb, and was only a short distance from the summit. My fellow climbers of the Bay Area Mountaineering group looked like small, marching ants below. As I looked, though, they appeared to be heading up to the west side (!!). Interesting, I thought, but what did they know? Regardless, I popped off my crampons, gloves, and secured my ice axe to my backpack in preparation for ‘rock mode’. It was a slow, methodical process, keeping everything either attached to me, in my hand, or inside a pocket. A drop at this point would mean watching my precious gear tumble down down down – stopping, if ever, somewhere far below.
Feeling the sun-warmed rock in my hands, I peaked over the ridge and boom! – a sheer cliff, dropping off hundreds of feet down the south side. It was almost eerie, the stillness. The blue sky above and zero wind, high up in the air, made me feel calm, and alone. The granite cliffs of the mountain were torn, pounded, and honed by the Lyell glacier, leaving a narrow spine to my right as the only option to the summit – the east arête. At this point, it looked like a perilous route. Nonetheless, I started to climb.
Feature -- Arête (syn. comb, knife-edged ridge)
How to Identify -- Steep, sharp rock ridge between adjacent cirques
Probable Origin -- Quarrying by glacier in cirque
The moves were not difficult, but required both hands and feet, and a deliberate, defensive progression. Any gust of wind could toss me right off the ridge. I edged up, but each move beget a more difficult move, and now I was beginning to get high above a cliff on the north side too. Now I had cliffs dropping down on both sides, with a five foot boulder-strewn spine to the summit. Frankly, this did not seem like a great idea. Suddenly, I stopped and reassessed, a boulder wedged between my legs, my arms wrapped around it in embrace. I took a few deep, thin breaths – I did not sign up for this! With decision in hand, I downclimbed my tracks as carefully as I had come. Strike-one.
Crampons on, ice axe out, I began traversing my way across to where I had seen the others head. That’s when the climber below brought up The Chimney.
“What’s the chimney?” I responded, with interest. “It’s a class 3 with one class 4 move.” Uh, okay. So, according to the guidebook, more difficult than the east arête? Not exactly what I’d like, but purportedly only one class 4 move? – I better check it out.
The chimney, I found, was a narrow vertical passage on the north face, shielded by rock pillars on both sides, and almost directly beneath the summit. Because it was kept out of the sun, it was the highest point the glacier could reach its icy tentacles. If I could make it up the chimney, though, it was save me a slog of a traverse to the west side, and who knows what that side would be like? So I started up again, letting the midday shadows of the chimney fold over me, the slope getting steeper yet. Almost to the rock-snow interface, the seam of terrain that denotes summit attack, I felt hard ice below. Getting adequate purchase with my ice axe was became more difficult, as it appeared the glacier was covered by only 3 or 4 inches of softer snow. Methodically switching to ‘rock-mode’ again, I shouldered my pack and started climbing -- this time up instead of over, and shielded. I hoped there would be access to the summit.
The rock was a mix of shale-like crumbly crap, and the silky-smooth-solid Yosemite granite. Each handhold had to be tested, some crumbling into a rockslide, others barely holding secure. I never once put all my eggs in one basket, so to speak, or all my weight on one hold. Without a rope, or obvious route, it was trial and error at its finest. Ten minutes later I was perched awkwardly on a vertical column of shale, and glanced up. It looked like a scramble above – aka an easy climb, if I could just get to the other side of the chimney, and make a shimmey around this column. It was.
I made a few moves that got me where I wanted to go, with gravel dripping down at each movement, and me slapping rocks to test, every once in a while squeezing my backpack through an opening as my ice axe scraped the rock. Onto the boulder, scree field above, it was a veritable hop, skip and jump to the summit. And I was there! Now with the west side visible, I could see the rest of the group a mere 100 yards below ascending the west side. “WOooO-hOooOO!”, it felt great!
After some photos and hangout time, four of us (Gary, Frank, Adam and I) headed west to summit Mt. McClure (12,960') which included another ‘fun’ climb up its own east arête, but this time I had more confidence in my route. Glissading and plunge-stepping down the snowy cirque, we made it back to camp near the footbridge on the JMT, 13½ hours later. Approximate route in red dots below:
---------- TRIP SUMMARY ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Mileage: 28+ miles
Night #1: Lost Claim campground outside Yosemite NP on route 120 in Stanislaus National Forest. Elevation: 3500’.
Night #2: Along JMT in Lyell Canyon, just below footbridge, about 9.5 miles south from Dog Lake Parking lot in Tuolumne Meadows. Elevation: 9600’.
Night #3: Same as night #2
Conditions [pre-trip prediction]: Sunny days and windy; with partial snowcover on the trails, slushiness, muddiness, and fast flowing streams. Expect decent amount of snow off-trail and at higher elevations. The Lyell glacier I expect to be hard, crusty snow, and some scrambling requiring both hands, and stowing the ice axe on the pack. I hope post-holing is not a problem; as I am opting not to bring snowshoes.
Conditions [post-trip]: Conditions as expected for the most part. Warm and sunny typical Sierra weather, with highs in the mid 60’s and lows in the high 40’s at night. There was a bright full moon. Zero wind on the summit of both Lyell and McClure in the early afternoon, although it appeared that higher winds were sweeping over the summit in the mid morning (~10am) as we approached the glacier. Snowcups were present all along the route, about 18” in diameter, soft in the morning, softer later in the day. The entire route was slushy snow except for the very top of the chimney, where the glacier was covered by only 3” of crushed ice (snowcone-esque). Underneath was hard, impenetrable ice, that I believe was the very top of the Lyell glacier itself. Overall, conditions were excellent.
Gear Summary (click on thumbnail):
Detailed Gear List (click on thumbnails):
*Detailed spreadsheet can be provided on request.
Parts 1, 2, & 3:
