After weekends and weekends of rain, the forecast finally looked clear for Yosemite Valley. I and three other weekend warriors from the Bay Area piled into the car late on Friday evening to drive up the hill. We were all psyched to climb Higher Cathedral Spire on Saturday and check out a new climbing spot on Sunday.


Day One:


We left our car at the very reasonable hour of 10:45 and hiked up towards Higher Cathedral Spire. We got up to the base of the climb in 1 hour. One party was just finishing up when we arrived, but no one else was around. Noal and I racked up for the first pitch—easy crack climbing up to a big perch with a tree. Though the gully had been still and warm as we approached, it was really windy once we got out on the spire. We could here and see lots of parties on the Northeast Buttress of Higher Cathedral.

The start of pitch 2 required some route-finding analysis. I had heard of the “traverse-left-powerful bulge” route, the “direct original corner” route, and the “hard-overhanging-fingers” route to the right. All three were identifiable from the belay ledge. Below, Noal going out to the “powerful bulge.” The traverse over is well protected, and the bulge has great hand holds. Above the bulge, it’s mostly face climbing up to the next belay; there is one good bolt to help out with protection. Directly to the right of Noal, you can see the beginnings of a corner, which is the direct variation.


Our friends climbing with us did yet another variation to the right of where we were. Below, Michael leads up this variation.


The four of us met up on the belay perch at the top of the third pitch. For this pitch, Michael and Stephen went directly up the rotten chimney. Here, Stephen is following that route.

Noal and I traversed left around the bulge about ten feet below where Stephen is in the picture above and headed over to the fun 5.7 chimney out of sight. We met up at the top of the belay ready for the final pitches.

We did the final section in two pitches so as to avoid rope drag. The first pitch was through steep fractured rock that you can’t miss from the top of the third belay ledge. There is an awkward step right at the top of this section and then into a nice belay alcove. Here’s Noal on the fourth pitch below the fractured rock (out of sight) working to get out some booty. No nut left behind!


At the top of the fourth pitch, the final hand crack was right above us. After the hand crack, there is an awkward mantle leftwards and a few traversing steps, and then it was to the top for spectacular views!

The top:



What the top of the spire looks like:



We rappelled to the top of the third pitch and then pitch by pitch from there. We used a single 60 meter rope. Here’s Noal looking down the rappel on the south side of the spire.


Michael does his top out dance with Braille Book in the Background.


Me and El Cap.


No wonder the water is so cold.

A nice view of the NEB


A nice view of the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral

What a spectacular day, with plenty of time for beer and a campfire afterwards.

Day 2:

In search of more pointy rock formations, we headed to the Eagle Creek area on Sunday morning. This time we were three; our fourth decided he would rather run up to the top of Half Dome and meet us later. Whatever! In the pull-off area, we ran into a climber who was worried that we were gonna race him up to Absolutely Free, but he was much friendlier after we assured him that we were headed up to Split Pinnacle and pointed us in the right direction. We hiked up along side the swollen Eagle Creek for about 20 minutes before we started having difficulty following the creek bed because of the high water flow. Here is Stephen with the pinnacle in the background.

We headed into the woods about thirty feet and started up through the woods, but after two close-calls with rattlesnakes, we decided to make the most of it by the creek bed. However, we finally got to a section where the bank of the creek bed was a steep wall of large boulders held not-so-tightly-together with drying mud. We contemplated going back or going up the bank on the boulders. Stephen gave the upward route a try, but a boulder loosened underneath him. I turned around to see him fall through the air and land about five feet from the rushing water on his side. Noal and I couldn’t move very quickly over the loose terrain, but Stephen was up before we got to him and ok other than a bruised hip. We backtracked and went back up the wooded slope, taking our chances with rattlesnakes rather than loose boulders. After slogging about one hundred more feet up a slope loosened by a long wet winter, we finally came to the base of a beautiful chimney.


Noal led up the chimney, and Stephen followed, with me third. There were all different widths and variations inside, and the protection was solid. The top of the pitch was a lovely ledge with a tree for a belay and a realllly great rock to lie on and take in the view while your partners do the work. And a good place for me to notice that my pants seat was totally split wide open post-chimney...apparently one chimney too many!


Stephen led the second pitch, which started with a flakey section followed by some slabs and dikes and ended with a fabulous hand crack in a corner.


Below is Noal on the middle of the second pitch. The pedestal up and right is the top of the pitch.


The third pitch was a traverse from the pedestal down and left to the bottom of the fourth pitch, which gets you to the base of the true pinnacle. We could not see this true top section of the pinnacle until we got to the top of the second pitch. Here, Noal looks for the best way to protect himself as he prepares to move down and left. There seemed to be several ways to go, but the protection was difficult for both leader and follower on this pitch.



Below is what you can see from the top of pitch 2 (before the traverse): in the lower left corner, you can see the curving crack of pitch 4. After a bouldery start, I climbed the crack, which varied from fingers to hands and eventually ran out. The rock crumbled in places, making it hard for me to trust my feet. But the breeze blowing up the back of my newly-opened pants kept me cool. I got to the top of the pitch and found slings around a rock and then explored the upper ledges.


From the top of the fourth pitch, I could see that to reach the last pitch, we’d have to climb about twenty feet of loose blocks. That pitch would be either an aid line up the left side of the top of the pillar or a .10c lieback on a flake (which you can barely make out on the face on the top of the pinnacle). We made an executive decision to bail from there. We were already three hours late to meet our friend, and the last fifteen feet up to final pitch was big loose blocks, and I felt like I had dodged enough of those for the day already. We were able to take two rappels from the top of the fourth pitch to get to the ground about 200 feet uphill from the start of the climb. But that 200 feet was so loose, we actually rapped from trees down the slope! We got back to our things, brushed off the biting ants that were crawling all over our things, and started back down the slope, hoping the snakes had all gone home for the day.



Below, North Dome in profile.


Stephen leads the way across the creek.



Good place to admire Sentinel Rock,



Another spectacular day on a pointy rock formation. It felt fantastic to find a beautiful approach, adventurous climbing, and solitude among the hustle bustle of the Valley in June.

Thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear from other people who have been up to Split Pinnacle if anyone sees this!