Climbing Cathedral Peak
Grade: 5.6
Hiking distance: 6.5 miles
Elevation gain: 2200 ft
Time: 5 hours (base to top of climb), 12 hours (car to car)
Tuolumne Meadows is a beautiful area of Yosemite filled with granite domes and alpine lakes. It lies high above Yosemite Valley, at 8000+ feet of elevation, which makes it much cooler than the valley and a great place to climb in the summer.
On the first day of our trip, Louie and I climbed “Bull Dozier,” a 3 pitch, 5.7 traditional climbing route on Dozier Dome. We had a nice view of Tenaya Lake on the climb.
After reaching the top, we continued hiking for about 10 minutes to reach Lower Cathedral Lake. It was very calm and peaceful since nobody else was there, and we had a great view of Cathedral Peak and its reflection in the water below. At 10,916’ tall, Cathedral Peak is one of the most prominent peaks in the area, and luckily for us, is what we would be climbing on the next day!
Approach
The next day, Louie and I woke up at 6am to get an early start on the approach to Cathedral Peak. We ate breakfast, packed up, and drove over to the trailhead, starting the approach hike at 7:30am. We started from the “Cathedral Lakes Trailhead” by the Visitor’s Center, rather than the parking pullout, so we had an extra 0.4 miles to walk each way.
We reached the turnoff for the climber’s trail after about 30 minutes.
After hiking for about an hour, we had Cathedral Peak in view! The hike up to the base was pretty tough and steep, the last section just being stone steps and switchbacks to get up to the base of the climb.
We reached the base of the climb at 9:30am. The approach was about 3 miles and something like 1500 ft of elevation gain, so I have no idea how Mountain Project reports that people do this approach in just 1 hour (while carrying climbing gear..). Anyways, as average hikers/climbers, the approach took us 2 hours from when we left the car.
Climb
We were about to climb the Southest Buttress of Cathedral Peak, a classic climb with many variations, since you can climb almost anywhere that you want to on the southeast face of the mountain. The “standard” start of the route was pretty crowded, with a few people waiting in line, so we opted to walk 50 feet or so to the right, where we took a variation to the start. There was nobody in line here, so we took a quick snack break and then racked up to get ready to climb.
Louie started leading the first pitch around 10:10am.
Louie and I alternated leading pitches, with Louie taking pitches 1, 3, and 5, and me taking pitches 2 and 4. The climbing was generally smooth sailing, climbing at only 5.6 (pretty easy), with lots of solid gear placements, numerous ledges to rest on, and great places to make belays. I enjoyed doing some route-finding, where there weren’t really any wrong choices, so it was more of a choose-your-own-adventure where I could pick whatever line looked the most fun, and just climb until I was running out of rope and found a nice ledge.
The climb was moderately crowded, with several other parties climbing at the same time as us, but with so many options for where to climb and belay, it wasn’t really an issue.
The only time we had to wait was to go up the chimney near the top of the climb. Louie waited for around 15-20 minutes and then led up the chimney. We had only brought one backpack and were having the follower carry it, so I had to hang the bag underneath me from my harness as I followed up the chimney. It was a fun challenge, although a bit awkward and somewhat strenuous, but it was not too hard.
We reached the summit around 3:30pm. Standing on the small summit platform, the 360 degree panoramic views were breathtaking, with views of Budd Lake, Lower and Upper Cathedral Lakes, Echo Peaks, Eichorn Pinnacle, and many other peaks and domes.
Descent
After taking in the view and snapping some quick photos, we descended off the summit, since several other parties caught up to us and there isn’t much room on the summit. After a short, steep 4th class downclimb, we coiled the rope and put away our gear. The rest of the descent was a 3rd class scramble. Finding the way down was tricky in some places, but by 5:15pm we reached the official descent trail (the Mountaineer’s Route). After that, the descent was straightforward and we reached the base of Cathedral Peak around 6pm.
We still had to hike 3 miles back out. Happy but tired, hungry for dinner, and starting to run low on water, we finally got back to the car at 7:30pm, exactly 12 hours after we had started the day.
