Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite

We continued in to Tuolumne meadows and split up. Doug, Linda and Tania went for a hike down the Tuolumne River and reached a point just shy of Glen Aulin while Carl, Patsy and I went rock climbing on Lambert Dome. We wanted to climb the Northwest Books but had to wait for one party ahead of us. This is a classic 5.6 *** two pitch route that overlooks the whole of Tuolumne. A beautiful climb. I led the first pitch and Patsy the second.

The next day we drove our cars down to Tenaya Lake and took the shuttle bus back to the Cathedral Lakes trailhead in Tuolumne Meadows. This is also part of the John Muir Trail (and PCT). Even though there was evidence of much foot traffic, we didn't encounter all that many people. We kept leapfrogging a Sierra Club group from the San Francisco chapter and we met a group of three, one of whom was an octogenarian. Short of Cathedral Lakes we headed east up the side of Cathedral Peak. Unfortunately, Linda wasn't feeling well. She and Doug decided to go back down and hike the Sunrise trail to Tenaya Lake. The four of us continued up the increasingly vertical slope to the summit block. There we met another couple, who upon questioning said that they were Assyrian (Tania, who is Lebanese, noted that this was an interesting anomaly, as the country Assyria no longer exists. Apparently, however, the culture continues to survive).

Tania and the other lady couldn't tolerate the exposure and refused to climb further. I led the fourth class climb up to the summit block only to find that there were no rappel bolts on the summit, only the base of the register box (sans register), which was itself bolted to the summit. I tied off to the bottom of the register box and to two stoppers that I opposed in a crack. I belayed everyone else up to the top, we took the obligatory summit photographs and then I belayed them down in reverse order.

We descended the peak a little farther south than the way we had gone up and had to rappel at one point down a steep section. By the time we had returned to the trail we were only a few hours shy of running out of daylight. There was insufficient time remaining to follow the Sunrise trail to Tenaya Lake. Instead, I opted to follow a cross-country route across the north shore of the lower Cathedral Lake and its outlet stream down past Pywiack Dome and to Tenaya Lake. This turned out to be an enchanting route and we reached the cars before dark and half an hour or so before Doug and Linda.

The next morning Doug and Linda packed up and headed home. We drove to the store in Tuolumne where Carl was picked up by another Sierra Clubber who had been on one of the bus trips but had had to drive for lack of room on the bus. We also spent some time chatting with Gail Hanna, who had led a Sierra Club group up the Tuolumne River Canyon.

After eating lunch, Tania, Patsy and I went climbing on the east side of Lambert Dome. I led the 5.7 * climb, Alive at Leads. Appropriately named, perhaps, since there exists the possibility of hitting the ground from 80 feet up. We top-roped several other climbs in the same area.

On Tuesday morning we packed up the car and headed to the Tioga entrance. We parked just inside the Park and hiked to the Great Sierra Mine in the Gaylor Lakes basin. This is a beautiful high Sierra subalpine meadow.

We left the Park at 2 pm and started the long drive home. En route we stopped at one of the natural hot springs near Mammoth for a quick soak. We returned to Rancho Bernardo at 11 pm.