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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 10, 2008 - 03:44pm PT
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Aidan, so good to hear that you got up the route... we will too.
As for soloing Circular Staircase, you probably could, but the way we went was pretty slick and the cracks vegetated, it wouldn't be fun, and it would be a long time before anyone found your remains. Lots of opportunity to take a big ride, but once you're in the gully its totally mellow.
Very nice to put associate an avatar with the real thing!
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CAMNOTCLIMB
Trad climber
novato ca
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Oct 29, 2008 - 12:45pm PT
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big adventure.. and done in a day
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 29, 2008 - 01:10pm PT
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Eddie Hartouni is a proud "GluForPu"
Glutton For Punishment!
I think if him as my canary in the coalmine. Separating the neat from the choss in the great unknown!
Peace
Karl
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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May 11, 2009 - 12:53am PT
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this really does look kinda cool. wonder if there is snow in the descent still?
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Bump for coolness.
FYI, some snow on SS descent as of yesterday, but no raps required.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Thanks for pulling this up. I love this kind of adventure bushwhack.
Anyone ever explore the Staircase Falls trail above Curry? The oldtimers built a trail to Glacier Point up there but I believe they abandoned it by 1900 due to rockfall damage. My info is sketchy. I'd love to know more.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Spider,
You're referring to the Ledge Trail. It starts (or at least started) at Cabin 69 in Curry, if that cabin is still there.
It was never terribly well-maintained, but it was an official trail until WW II.
I have hiked it twice. The lower part (from below to a little past the Glacier Point Terrace start) is gone in rockslides, and there's an exposed but very easy ledge to cross. After that, it's quite easy to follow, although there's plenty of brush, and seasonal snow/ice/water in the upper gully. It is a couple of orders of magnitude easier than the approach to the Sentinel Rock north face.
I thought it was a particularly lovely hike in the fall when the hardwoods turned a beautiful golden color, and there was still a trickle of water on the final gully.
It ends a few hundred yards from the end of the Four Mile Trail. There are signs at the top, and at the Glacier Point Terrace start, warning tourists against trying to follow the trail. To me, they add to its allure.
John
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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We use to carry our clunker bikes up the Ledge Trail and ride down from Glacier Point to the Valley on the road.
Way way pre mountain bike era, closer to the steam era!
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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There are many climbs in Yosemite Valley which I have termed "Roper Obscurities," for those climbs that appear in Roper's encyclopedic 1971 Climber's Guide to Yosemite Valley and in no later guides. There are 158 such climbs spanning the time period from 1869 to 1970 (a year before the publication of the guide).
Very interesting post. Sitting in the Yosemite Cafe over Memorial Day with my partner/boyfriend (Ferretlegger on ST) I asked him why he always preferred and studied his old climbing guide book (Roper) instead of the new one with all the slick colored pics. He practically had tears in his eyes when he said "there are so many climbs in this Valley that aren't in the new guides and they are just going to become lost". Nice to know that others are of ther same mindset and not willing to let those wonderful climbs fade into obscurity.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Recent rockfall has thoroughly sprayed the bottom half of the ledge trail with debris. Could be quite a mess and as dangerous a rockfall zone as the valley has these days.
(I'm not trying to talk Ed into going there, just sayin'
the ledge trail was a cool adventure a number of years ago, who knows what it's like now? (or maybe you could just skip the approach ledge with it's rockfall debris and go straight up LeConte gully, the official name for the upper half of the ledge trail.
Peace
karl
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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Thanks Ed!
"Keep them doggie's rollin, rawhide!!"
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Karl,
The "official" Le Conte gully is to the north of Grizzly Peak (Roper Red Guide, p. 129; Roper Green Guide, pp. 182-183), not on Glacier Point, despite the latter's location above the Le Conte Memorial Lodge. If I remember rightly, the Lodge was originally at Happy Isles, but that had to be before the 1960's, since I did my first aid lead on Le Conte Boulder's bolts then.
The Sierra Point trail, which was the normal way to get to Le Conte Gully, used to begin at the old watering trough a few hundred yards past the late, great, Happy Isles Bridge, but the bottom of that trail has also suffered from rockslides over the years, and is largely steep and loose.
I haven't ventured up the Ledge Trail since the big rockfall on the west side of the Apron, but rockfall was always an issue on the lower part of the hike. Before that rockfall, it was probably easier to approach via Monday Morning Slab and working west rather than going up the line of the old trail, because the latter was washed (slid?) out within a few hundred vertical feet of its start, and the result was a classic, dirty, loose, slide gully.
John
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Yeah John, I think you're right.
So basically there are two sketchy LeConte gullies in the valley. The unofficial one, from Glacier point, is more famous cause some folks ski it in good conditions
I did the "sierra point" Leconte gully (continuing up instead of cutting right to sierra point) once as an approach to soloing snake dike. It was way scarier than soloing snake dike but I probably didn't try to go the easiest way. Still, it would have been a great snake dike approach if it weren't so dicey. Mabye cutting over to sierra point and climbing the ridge would have been more solid
I should probably try to do something stupid soon to stay in shape cause my climbing calendar for June is kinda sparse.
Peace
Karl
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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I should probably try to do something stupid soon to stay in shape cause my climbing calendar for June is kinda sparse.
Me too, Karl, although June's sparseness isn't much I can (or want to) do anything about. My younger daughter graduates for UC Davis this Saturday, and I need to stay in Fresno the Father's Day weekend to assist my older daughter in various ways none of which, sad to say, have anything to do with the mountains. After that, though, watch out!
John
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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That's the ledge system that diagonals up and right under Firefall wall?
Scoped it out last weekend, cool looking romp.
Way sporty climbing under that huge scare that gave birth to the rockfall I watched while eating pizza on the deck.
Edit: Thanks for the TR ED!
Always a treat to get the lowdown on the forgotten!
Mucci
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
SoCal
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JE & Karl, Thanks for the updates. I'm allergic to rockfall, thus have avoided The Apron for the last 20 years. Still, I might try that Ledge Trail if the time is right.
I found the Sierra Point trail a couple years ago. The start is pretty well hidden these days but it seems to get regular use.
Finding and easy way up that east end of the valley to Half Dome has been interesting to me for a long time. It looks like a fun problem.
Indian Canyon behind the village looks like a good slog too. I've heard early Sierra Clubbers used to do that one all the time.
Just love a good bushwhack.
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E Robinson
climber
Salinas, CA
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Nice TR makes me wistful for Yosemite climbing. Tried to free the Flue years ago, but rain kept us from freeing a couple of moves at the very end. Sentinel is such a cool stone.
E
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Thank you for the great adventure write-up and Google-link.
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Eric Beck
Sport climber
Bishop, California
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Another bit of obscura in this area is the lower west face of Sentinel. As far as I know, no one does this any more. I think that Chouinard and Frost did include it on the first ascent. We certainly didn't when we did the WF. I did subsequently get curious and did it. Not very good, quite rotten, maybe a touch of 5.8.
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