Three Days in Tuolumne

Only three days. That was it. A five-day getaway had been the original plan, but then a day had to be lopped off due to my work, and then another one got nixed by Terry’s work… Clearly, work is getting in the way of the essentials in life.

But it would be rash to throw the baby out with the bathwater: Even three days in granite-domed, alpine splendor was worth packing the van and heading up 395. It had been seven years since we climbed Cathedral Peak, which was the last time we were in Tuolumne Meadows. So we were overdue for a reboot.

It was an SCMA club trip and had I signed up to be the co-leader. I don’t recall leading a trip in two years, so I was past due to step up and volunteer. As it turned out, my biggest contribution to the trip was imparting the Park rangers with my diplomatic charm (my wife is laughing now) and getting them to exchange the campsites they allotted us (they sucked) for more spacious accommodations. All sites are not created equal by any means.

We were the first to arrive Friday morning, having driven as far as Bishop the night before. After negotiating and securing two primo sites at Tuolumne Meadows Campground, we went exploring. It was a marvelous day for a hike. The Pacific Crest Trail passes through the meadows, and we followed it out to Parsons Lodge before moseying over to Lembert Dome to check out the route Northwest Books. We haven’t been climbing much the past year, but this route looked doable. Then again, neither of us could get motivated to run to the van and grab the gear. So we continued hiking.

It was near this soda spring, at the edge of the meadows, where John Muir and publisher Robert U. Johnson sat around a campfire one night in 1889 and discussed the virtues and pristine beauty of the wilderness surrounding them. They came away convinced that something must be done to protect it from mankind's encroachment. Johnson returned home to New York City and printed two influential essays by Muir in Century Magazine. It worked. A year later, Congress voted to create Yosemite National Park. 

This is our trip leader, Trish Stoops. Trish joined the SCMA in 2011, soon after moving to California. She has traveled extensively in India, Nepal and South Africa, where she worked—when she wasn’t climbing—as a project manager for Habitat for Humanity. Her organizational skills are tops, bar none.

This is Trish’s cat, Buddy, aka the Camper Cat. This guy goes everywhere. Besides frequenting Tuolumne on a regular basis, he ventures to Yosemite Valley, the Eastern Sierra, the Needles, Courtright, Joshua Tree…  Always will he be, paws down, the coolest cat in camp.

On Saturday, Dave Skyer, organized a group foray to the back side of DAFF Dome, to a secluded area known as the Wind Tunnel. Ter and I opted to tag along to make it a gang of seven. The approach was an uphill grind, but the views along the way were exceptionally rewarding with Fairview Dome soaring above the trees on the other side of the valley.

The Wind Tunnel lies in a stone V-notch between DAFF and Cottage Domes. There are a few moderate-to-easy routes here, though half of them are R-rated runouts with long stretches of blank slab between protection bolts—in other words, a typical moderate route at this climbing venue. Welcome to Tuolumne.

Taking a break between climbs, coiling ropes and re-racking gear.    

Carmen Cendejas was cool and collective leading DAFFy Duck, a 90-foot romp protected by a single bolt about halfway up, at the 5.6 crux, to keep you from falling to your demise. She is about twenty feet above the bolt in this photo, with at least another twenty feet remaining to reach the belay/rappel anchors.  Breathe, Carmen. Breathe.

Phil Hall flew in from Washington DC for a business meeting and stretched it into a long weekend to visit friends (he was transferred to the East Coast last year). He was unaware of the club trip on the calendar that same weekend—until he landed in SoCal and some SCMA pals urged him to go. Phil hadn’t brought any climbing gear, but he did scrounge up a tent and sleeping bag and drove up to T-Meadows in his rental car. I lent him an extra pair of climbing shoes; somebody else donated a spare harness; a helmet; chalk bag; and presto! He got in two days of climbing. 

Nothing caps off your climbing day better than a cold brew on the shores of Tenaya Lake. 

Yosemite backcountry ranger Lee Lang (at left) is a long-time climbing buddy of Dave’s, and since he didn’t have to work on Saturday, Dave invited him to join us for a day of cragging and après-climb libations afterwards at Tenaya Lake. Lee shared some entertaining yarns and insights on Park politics, rescues, wily bears and lost backpackers.

The Tuolumne Meadows Grill & General Store is a perpetual hub of activity, catering to the needs of campers, backpackers, climbers and a sundry throng of motorists who stop for a bite to eat before moving on. Since the John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest Trail converge here, it also serves as a resupply station for backpackers. PCT thru-hikers congregate at a half-dozen picnic tables, swapping tales of adventure while scarfing down cheeseburgers, cold beer and ice cream—things you can’t get in the backcountry—and strategizing the next leg of their trek. From here, it is 1,700 miles to Canada.

German tourists snap photos of the vast meadows across the road. Harley bikers thunder out of the parking lot towards Tioga Pass. A couple of lean, natty rock climbers (I know they're climbers from the residue of chalk and grime on their hands) step out of the store with bags of groceries, and a young lady backpacker in a skirt and bikini top marches past them, holding a miniature solar panel above her head in an endeavor to recharge her cell phone. Little does she know that the communication tower has been swept away in a rockslide. There is no cell service anywhere in the Park.

Another day in paradise.

We had twelve people in two adjoining campsites for Saturday night, where good cheer invariably abounds around the fire. Lee and Dave reminisced on their past big-wall exploits together in Yosemite Valley. Then Kelvin Nguyen and Damian Nemirovsky rolled into camp after a successful ascent of the Regular Route on Fairview Dome, about a thousand feet of climbing and one of the coveted plums in Tuolumne. They were stoked. 

By nine o’clock, trip leader Trish had still not returned. She had taken a novice, Stacy Sanchez, with her to climb on Stately Pleasure Dome, and a few around the fire began to express if we should be worried or not. As the co-leader, I felt compelled to go take a look-see, and recruited Phil to accompany me. We jumped into his rental car and started out of the campground, figuring the least we could do was to check if Trish’s vehicle was parked at one of the highway pullouts that climbers use to approach the domes. 

We had just motored past the campground entrance gate when we saw a dusty Toyota Sienna flash by in the opposite direction. Hey, Trish drove a Sienna. Follow that car!! 

Phil pulled a quick U-turn and we were in hot pursuit, back into the campground. However, it was pitch dark and headlights did little to assist in making a positive i.d. Then the car turned up a loop that didn’t lead to our sites. So maybe it wasn’t her after all. Phil flashed his brights and the car stopped. Now what? Did we just pull over some stranger? We were sitting there, deciding on what to do next, when a cat popped its head up in the back window of the car.

Yep. That’s Trish.

Sunday afternoon at Dozier Dome, Trish was squinting up a sea of knobby granite, searching in vain for the first bolt. Shit. Where is it? It’s one thing to spot a bolt thirty feet off the deck and commit to climbing up to it; concentration and motivation laser-focused on the objective of reaching that first clip. But it’s a whole other gig to climb up thirty feet, hoping that you’re starting on-route and you’ll see the bolt somewhere when you get higher and it won’t be forty feet way to your right—or not there at all. Shit. 

But it all worked out. I was able to spot the first hanger from where I was standing at the bottom, and I called out to Trish and pointed well above her head. Her apprehension receded. She chalked up and sent Scandalous Summer, clipping seven bolts along the way.

One hundred fifty feet up, Trish clipped the last bolt and contemplated the final stretch to the belay ledge. This was the crux part now. Everything below had been easier.  

Climbing a route is not all about the climbing. The ascent frequently leads to a lofty perch with a sublime vista, where one can pause and absorb the grandeur from a viewpoint that no one else can experience unless they clamber up as well. Inspirational for a postcard from a ledge.      

When Terry had gained a good stance just below the belay ledge of Scandalous Summer, I locked her off and snapped a one-handed photo. Smile! Then she scrambled up the last bit and sat next to me, taking in the view of Tenaya Lake down-canyon. This was the last hurrah. From here, we would rap off and start the long but scenic drive down the Eastern Sierra towards home. Yes, three days in Tuolumne was not long enough. But it was better than no days at all.

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For more photos from this trip, go here...

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