Kevinstagram's Blog

This was my second trip to Yosemite with the first being in July 2019. Last trip was a hybrid van camping + climbing trip while this time we stayed at Camp 4 (right in the park) and really it was all about the climbing. My partner for the trip Matteo had some time between projects at work and liked the early-October weather window so suggested the trip during a drive up to Squamish and I was keen! Both our summer alpine climbing plans for the season didn't quite work out we were both looking forward to getting out and about.

Leading up to the trip there was a little bit of uncertainty around the new reservation system for Camp 4 but they extended the reservations into October and I managed to secure us a full week of reservations which is the longest that you’re allowed to stay in the park for and was excellent because we wouldn't have to worry about camping out infront of the kiosk and hoping enough people leave so we could get a spot.

Day 1

Day 1 was lots of driving and waiting at the border. It was a Friday and many folks in Canada had the day off work for Truth and Reconciliation day and we left a little bit late so got absolutely murdered by my longest wait at a border ever. We did consider turning around and climbing in Squamish instead for the week, but we stuck with it and eventually made it through.

We made it down to Southern Oregon with Matteo doing the majority of the driving (thanks a lot!) to an actually really nice rest stop off the highway (before Grant’s Pass for next time) which was far enough off the highway that it wasn’t super loud and actually got a really good sleep outside on some nice gravel beside the car.

Day 2

Day 2 we woke up to dew on our sleeping bags and piled into the car for a lot more driving then stopped for groceries in California. We made it to our camp site at Camp 4 a little before dark, set up camp, made dinner and went to bed.

Day 3 – The North Face of the Rostrum (5.11c, 8p)

We planned to start with what we thought would be the easiest of our more challenging routes for the trip. This would end up being the only one of the three harder climbs that we’d planned to attempt this trip (The N Face of the Rostrum, Astroman on Washington Column, and The West Face of El Capitan,) that we would try. A late start due to internet troubles checking in in the morning and general business and faff meant that we didn't start the climb until around 11.

The approach for the climb feels pretty exciting and committing because you actually park above the climb and then hike down and rappel into it, but since Matteo had tried it in the past he knew the approach which was really useful. I got the first pitch which was supposed to be 5.9 with a 5.7 chimney at the top. It felt really quite tough and that was kind of the theme for the rest of the climb with all the pitches feeling tough and pretty sustained for the grade. The climbing was really good quality though and I’d like to be able to return to cruise this climb some day like these ladies do in this youtube video I watched the night before leaving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vkNA2MhpcU. Eventually it got dark on us and we ran out of water while finishing up the last pitch so we did the descent (ascent really) in the dark, made it back to the car, quenched our thirst with a delicious La Croix that Matteo's lovely wife Jae left behind (for us,) and drove back to camp a little bit humbled.

Day 4 - The Unintentional Rest Day

We planned to do another route this day but were super tired so decided to do some single pitch instead at Glacier Point. After a suitable amount of faffing in the morning away we headed out at 1:30 to try to find the parking and a highly recommended finger crack. We did eventually find the parking even though Yosemite puts in lots of signs that it’s full and that you’re not supposed to be there anyways and we eventually found our climb too. It had a bunch of people on it and also waiting for it so we went to go look for something else and didn’t find anything inspiring enough to try so we headed back to camp empty handed.

Day 5 – The Regular Route on Higher Cathedral Spire (5.9(++), 5p)

Today we had a big just over an hour long and pretty steep approach to climb the really excellent Regular Route on Higher Cathedral Spire. I think this would make for a really good first route in the valley since it’s pretty straightforward and it’s a good introduction to the steeeep valley style.

Day 6 – The Voyager on The Fifi Buttress but instead we got lost on the approach so did some single pitch climbs

By now we weren’t sure if we were going to try Astroman or the West Face of El Cap. It had been 29°C and blasting sun every day we’d been there and the forecast was for literally just 29°C every day for the rest of our trip which is not great conditions for climbing really hard. The Voyager we found in the guidebook which was a newer climb and supposed to stay in the shade until mid-afternoon which sounded excellent.

On the hike up we missed our turnoff and ignored the sage wisdom of some people working on a really nice trail, so ended up hiking up a gully parallel to the one that we wanted and after a couple hours of bushwhacking (approach was supposed to be ~45 minutes so we should probably have been suspicious and turned around) we ended up at what we were pretty sure was the top of our climb. The next day it turned out that we were indeed kind of correct about that, but for now we turned around and went back to camp.

Matteo scoped out in the guidebook a crag near camp right by a waterfall which got full afternoon shade so determined to get at least a bit of climbing in for the day we went to check it out and it turned out to be excellent!

Day 7 – The Voyager on The Fifi Buttress (5.11c, 7p)

We returned to the Fifi Buttress, but this time we knew where to turn off and also saw some other people on the trail up going to the same area, but a different climb and they’d been there before. This is always an excellent situation because we knew we were on the right track and also we knew neither of us would be getting in eachother’s way on the climb. We ended up passing the seemingly invisibile start to the climb but knew we went too far and by the time we headed back to find it there was another party starting up. It was their second attempt on it so we knew the climb pretty well must be good and that they’d be speedy which are both great signs.

The climb was really really good and even though the climbing was the same grade as The Rostrum it was way easier and we wrapped up early in the afternoon.

We went back to camp to strategize for the next day. Instead of the shadier (at least until the afternoon) but much harder West Face of El Capitan, we were thinking of trying the much sunnier but shorter and easier East Buttress so we could scope out what the climbing was like and also the notoriously somewhat tricky East Ledges descent.

Day 8 – The East Buttress of El Capitan (5.10b, 12p)

We woke up quite early to try to beat the sun and the crowds to our climb for the day. We successfully beat the crowds but got to the base of the climb right as the sun was too. This climb is mostly 5.8 and 5.9 but old school and felt really quite tough to me for those grades. Climbing it in the sun didn’t help I’m sure. We did make it up and survived using all the janky prehistoric anchors backed up by not very confidence inspiring gear without melting or getting sunburnt actually. The climb was pretty good with the rock being very polished – originally climbed in 1953 this climb has seen many many many ascents over the years.

We made it down the East Ledges descent without any issues and I’m glad to know now how they work for next time I’m up there. I’m pretty sure we could have done them in the dark if needed but it would have been pretty tricky and probably not very much fun and take a long time.

Day 9 – The Great Escape on The Chapel Wall (5.11c (actually 12a), 4p) and starting the great drive back home

For our last day in The Valley we slept in, packed up camp, and decided to try this multipitch sport climb that we’d scoped out in the guidebook. It was supposed to be shady until mid-afternoon and really good quality, but quite tough for it’s assigned 11c grade. By now we were pretty well out of fingertips and very tired, but I was glad to have sent the third pitch and fell off all the other ones a decent amount. This was another excellent climb and even though the actual chapel’s parking was full the approach was still quite short.

We stopped by the gift shop to but a T-shirt on the way out and started our long drive. This time we weren’t as fortunate with a much noisier rest stop ditch bivvy, but it still worked out.

Day 10

We stopped at McDonalds for breakfast which happened to be the same one that we stopped at on the way in and drove safely back home. This was a Sunday with Thanksgiving Monday being a holiday so luckily we didn’t have any border traffic at all on the way back bringing our average wait down to only 2.5 hours each way.

Overall I’m really happy with getting to climb lots of stuff across a really wide variety of different places around the park. For next time I’d like to have a bit more of a plan about how I can try really hard on lead since I found I could second pretty competently but whenever I was leading and it got a little bit tough I would get scared and ask for a take. It does always seem to be a bit of a faff to get out to Yosemite and camp and pay for permits but I find it has always been worth it.