Cathedral

My friend George moved to Tuolumne Meadows this summer. Ever since he got the job, we had been plotting a climb of Cathedral Peak. I took a Thursday off work, and we put it on the calendar a few weeks out. The week prior, George texted me that some of his coworkers were planning a night climb, and proposed we change the plan. I agreed, as this sounded like an adventure. My preference would be to do the climb during the day, but I am not one to say no to an adventure. Also, as someone who cannot lead on trade, I understand that beggars cannot be choosers.

I drove up after work. The grill closes at six, and we all ate together behind the grill. We started hiking around 7 right before sunset. The crew featured George, one of his friends from LA and two friends from the grill: Anthony and Fiona. Quickly things started to go awry. George’s friend from LA was feeling the altitude. She wasn’t carrying much in her pack, as the rest of us had all the gear. Each of the other four of us had either a rack or a rope. I debated whether it would be rude to offer to take her already light pack. Luckily, she graciously accepted my offer and her pace quickened considerably.

By the time we got to the base of the climb, it was pitch dark. We met two parties coming down, and they wised us luck. We split into two groups with George and his friend in one group, and me Anthony and Fiona in the other group. This way I could be in the middle of the rope, and Anthony and Fiona could swing leads around me. This also offered me a great chance to get reaquainted with trade climbing. Being in the middle of the rope, I was never more than a few feet from another climber.

Anthony lead the first pitch quickly, and Fiona and I followed up. Fiona lead the next pitch. They were both far better climbers than me, so they were not as concerned with staying exactly on the route. The second pitch got us into some terrain right at the edge of my ability. Anthony gave me a quick lesson on crack climbing and we continued up. George and his friend were well above us at this point, so I decided that I would try to move as quickly as possible so as not to slow the group down.

Luckily, after that, we mostly stayed in easier terrain. The beta online talks about a a chimney midway up the route, which we never reached. Four pitches in, we figured we may have taken a wrong turn. George confirmed this over the radio, stating that we were well above the chimney now. By this point Anthony, Fiona and I had gotten into a good rhythm, and we were pulling ahead of George and his friend. It was fun climbing the route in this fashion with two groups, especially on such a wide open route where it was so easy to pass.

Climbing in the dark is very disorienting. I really had no idea where we were on the peak. It was a full moon, so we could make out the mountains in the distance, but we usually had out headlamps on for the climbing itself. Luckily we found nice belay ledges consistently. With three climbers, we could all take turns belaying and take turns enjoying the scenery. As the night crept on, it was getting colder and colder, and the exhaustion of the night was catching up to us. I began double checking basic belaying things with Anthony and Fiona, not wanting to make a mistake in my exhaustion. I much prefer starting early to going into the night, as I feel a lot more mentally with it starting early.

Finally, at the end of our 5th pitch, Anthony radioed down that he had reached the summit. Fiona and I were both happy to hear this news. We saw George a few dozen feet below us, so surely their party would be soon behind. It was surreal topping out the final few feet — a section I had seen so many pictures of online — completely in the dark. The three of us shared the small summit, and decided to wait for George.

In the distance, we could make out the lights of the Central Valley, the Clark Range, Lyell, Dana and Conness. I would like to return in the day sometime to truely appreciate this summit better. It was neat to see it in the dark though. It felt like were on the tip of an island floating in space.

We sat there for a while with no sign of George and company. Anthony was starting to worry as he had work at 7am the next morning. We summited at 12:30am, so that shift was quickly approaching. After an hour, we still had no sign of George, except for some garbled talk on the radio. Somehow, we were able to pickup a conversation in Spanish over the radio from who knows where. Finally, we were elated to see George’s headlamp crest over the rock and he joined us on the summit, his friend joining us shortly after.

It was nearly 2am now, and we had a mess of ropes and five climbers perched precariously on the summit. We lowered one by one, and continued down onto the ledges. I tried to keep pace with Fiona and Anthony, but eventually got spooked and slowed down. The slabs were very blank, and a fall would likely result in a tumble hundreds of feet into the abyss below. George’s friend and I did not like this at all, and it took us a long time to work our way down the slabs. Perhaps it was the exhaustion, perhaps it was the darkness, but I think it was probably just the exposure. We also did not have the same experience on slab as the Tuolumne residents. George offered encouragement, but I was pretty exasperated at this point, and told him that if we come back, we are going to rap this section.

Luckily, the sketchy section ended, and we were now back on second class terrain. I bounded ahead and soon was back at our cache at the start of the climb. We radioed ahead to Fiona and Anthony. They were already a mile ahead. Fiona offered to drive Anthony the two miles back to the grill so he could sleep and then return for the rest of us.

We ambled down the trail through the dark, dazed, tired, but happy to have made the summit. It was 5am, and first light appeared on the eastern horizon by the time we returned to the car. Sure enough, Fiona was there sleeping in her car. She drove us back to the grill, and we all gratefully drifted off into sleep.

I awoke after three hours of sleep, groggy and exhausted at 8am. Anthony was already at work, slinging pancakes on the grill. George and I didn’t do much that day. We mostly sat by the river, and took naps. I was exhausted for days to come. I am glad we climbed Cathedral and had a great adventure, but if I were to do it again, I would like to get started a little earlier in the day.