The Mokelumne Tetons do exist. And they are big. Though the good climbing is only in the upper reaches, the drop to the Mokelumne River below is 4,000 feet. They are also remote with an arduous approach and questionable water availability late in the season. Adventurous would be a good way to describe them.
This trip was more than a year in planning. I had flown over the Tetons many times in my small plane as that massive ridge is a visual waypoint when flying over the Sierras from Bishop to my home field at Placerville. Last year I did a closer fly-by and took recon photos. Hmmmm, interesting.
Later last year I went out backpacking with the dogs and checked out the area. Hmmmm, looking pretty good! At that time I didn’t know that under the rock I had lunch on was a summit register with the details of 4 or 5 climbs that had been done on the most climbable of Tetons, “The Whales Tail”. The dogs and I did scout the area and found a couple of springs within ½ mile of the most beautiful campsite you’ll ever see.
This year we did it. Betsy, myself and Nate made the 9 mile and 2,000 foot gain trek out. Nate came out to check out the area and also helped carry our gear. Thank you Nate. I easily found the first spring location – and it was dry! Oh oh, maybe late in the summer isn’t a good time for this. The trip hinged on finding water so the ½ mile hike to the next spring was a long one. The spring at first appeared dry, but we found three small pools each holding a few quarts and each would slowly fill back up.

There was no climbing that day as we spent the next few hours filtering water through an increasingly clogged filter until we had about 5 gallons, enough for all of us for the next few days.
The campsite is truly spectacular and hard to adequately describe. But to the party that stashed two ropes and some canned food tightly wrapped in a tarp under rocks near the campsite – your ropes are toast. The cans don’t look that appealing either.
Betsy and I had planned on doing something big on Saturday so we set out to climb a larger Teton than the Whales Tail. This beautiful orange Teton had a tougher approach and a much harder descent so it was very possibly unclimbed. We did the steep downhill approach and got on the toe of the Teton. We were going to traverse around to the face but it looked like we could climb almost straight up from where we were, so we did that at around 5.8. After two pitches we hit a ledge on the face and put in two belay bolts. I climbed up the face, put in a bolt and traversed right, into a depression under a huge flake – and there appeared two bolts. Hmmm. Very possibly climbed.
I belayed Betsy up and we discussed our options. My plan was to wrench off the hangers and replace them with our own, then if asked say, “That’s strange, we didn’t see any other bolts up there”. Betsy didn’t like that plan. We had come from the left so we decided to go back to the left into the dihedral / crack system and see if that worked. Betsy did a fantastic 5.9+/5.10a traverse to get over there, left-hand drilling and placing two bolts on the way. The second bolt makes the traverse very doable, because if you fall you can just pendulum into the lieback crack, just a little lower than if you made the traverse.
We didn’t originally choose that route because we were afraid a sustained hard finger or hand crack would do us in. That didn’t happen. There was a vertical chimney section behind a buttress but it had small incut holds for the feet and some nice edges and jugs outside for hands – a very fun 5.8. Well, it may have been more fun had I known it was going to stay 5.8 the whole way. I may have even stopped to take a photo which I wish I had done.
We popped out above the buttress onto the arete with some terrific exposure on the left and a roof above with nice juggy holds, and now with two new bolts – one below the roof and one above.

The steepness lets up not long after the roof and soon we were simulclimbing to the summit, where we found a short capped PVC pipe with a damp and hard to read notebook inside with one entry from 2008. Chris McNamara and Todd Offenbacher, a couple of unknown guys from Tahoe. Although it was difficult to tell, it seemed to say “The Bee” and since neither Chris or Todd can remember, both their route and this particular Teton is now called “The Bee”.
Todd confirmed their line goes up the face to the right of our line and Chris remembers good rock, but especially remembers the incredible campsite.
From the summit there is a terrific ridge walk reminiscence of Mather Crest and Saber Ridge with a bit of technical downclimbing, until it finally ends with a short rappel. We replaced tattered webbing and a corroded nut with two bolts.
Todd had also put up a compelling climb on Whales Tail (detailed in the summit register) that we intended to do on Monday before the hike out.

But sleeping in, relaxing and having coffee in that awesome campsite before the hike out (you climb about 1,000 feet on the way out too) was even more compelling. Next time.

Camp Chasm Arete, 5.9+/5.10a, 6 pitches. Named because you look from camp straight across a chasm at the arete.


The Bee, Chris McNamara and Todd Offenbacher, 2008, 5.10a. The notebook said one pitch of 5.10a and many 5.8/5.9.