Mount Lyell 13,114′ and Mount Maclure 12,880′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 17:20
Distance: 28.3 miles
Elevation Gain: 8180′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Lyell Canyon, full services
At 13,114′, Mount Lyell is the highest summit in Yosemite National Park and one of only three 13,000′ summits in the park. Below the craggy summit is the Lyell Glacier, one of the highest glaciers in the Sierra Nevada. To say that this glacier will be gone within my lifetime is not hyperbole- the East Lyell Glacier has retreated 70% since surveyed in 1883, and a study in 2013 found the glacial ice was no long moving, technically reclassifying it as a permanent ice field rather than a true glacier. I wanted to climb it while the glacier was still around, and figured going for it immediately after Tioga Pass opened for the season would give me the best taste of glacier climbing I could hope for. Unfortunately a mild California winter coupled with a very hot and dry spring meant that late spring conditions were closer to mid summer. I had a random weekday off and left the night before, camping outside the park over Tioga Pass then heading back in early. It was 4 AM when I left the Tuolumne Lodge trailhead, my car having read 34 degrees. The unseasonably warm temperatures we had been experiencing since before Memorial Day had dropped by about 20 degrees and they were calling for high winds across the Sierra with a Red Flag warning in Mammoth Lakes that day. But Lyell Canyon seemed to be protected from the winds and I wound into the canyon, the sound of rushing water to my left in the darkness.
Although Lyell Canyon is serene, it is very, very long. I had been up the year before through-hiking the John Muir Trail and was prepared for the beautiful monotony, following the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River for several hours. As I neared the head of the canyon, Mount Lyell and Mount Maclure came into view for the first time all day, the snowpack looking to still be in decent shape despite the warm weather.
I started up the first switchbacks of the day, passing our JMT campsite at the Lyell Forks footbridge and continuing past to a second rock-hop river crossing higher up. I stayed with the trail a bit longer until it cut hard east towards Donohue Pass, Mount Lyell directly above in the basin to the west. The high winds had brought some thick clouds which were covering the summit of Lyell as I left the trail.
These clouds would burn off long before I reached the summit, but they provided an extra hour or two of cooler conditions, keeping the glacial snow firm for my ascent. It wasn’t long after leaving the trail before hitting more consistent snow coverage. I stopped to put on waterproof shells, crampons and pull out my ice axe. It wound up being a bit pre mature, as I quickly reached some dry granite slabs a bit higher in the basin.
But this was short lived and I was quickly back on the snow, the true summit of Mount Lyell out of sight by the massive East Buttress. There were boot prints kicked into the snow fields with multiple parties having been up the previous weekend, but the snow was still firm enough this early in the day that I didn’t need to rely on the pre-kicked steps. It took over an hour from the slabs and start of the continuous snow to clear the east buttress and have a view of the Lyell Glacier proper. The standard route climbs to the Lyell-Maclure col, then follows the base of the summit rocks to and up a class 3 weakness. A slightly harder but more direct option is to climb directly up the glacier towards the east face of the summit rock, ascending a central gully directly to the summit. While I had been planning on the standard route, the snow was in perfect condition and there was a boot track leading up the central gully. So I opted for the more direct line up the glacier.
I was definitely feeling the effects of the altitude, the highest I had been since last December on Mount Tunnabora, and my pace slowed as I slowly worked higher up the glacier. A tongue of snow went up the shaded central gully, and my plan was to stay on the snow as long as possible.
However, as I near summit rocks, the glacial ice became soft and I needed to kick in steps more aggressively. I had forgotten that the rocks were conducting heat, and the gully, now just entering full sun, was essentially an oven. There was no hope of safely staying on the snow, and I moved off onto a ledge to remove my crampons and scramble up the remaining distance to the summit.
The ledges were covered in scree, and I worked around an arete out left onto solid rock, taking another 15 minutes to scramble up to the high point. I ducked behind the summit rocks out of the wind and signed into the register, finding a few other groups had summited the previous weekend. Mount Ritter and Banner dominated the view to the south, with the Clark Range to the west, the Shuteye Ridgeline to the southwest, Mount Hoffman to the northwest, and the Conness group to the north.
It had taken over 8 hours from the trailhead, much longer than I had planned largely due to my lack of acclimatization and the softer snow near the top of the glacier dramatically dropping my pace. I realized tagging Mount Maclure would mean finishing after dark, but it was too close not to summit. I started down the northwest ridge of Lyell down easy talus, then put my crampons back on to drop back on to the glacier and head over to the Lyell- Maclure col. I took them right back off and dropped my pack, heading up to the summit with only a water bottle and granola bar in my pocket.
The southeast ridge of Maclure was initially solid talus with straightforward boulder hopping but the rock became completely rotten halfway up, a jumble of loose scree stacked over a steep snow field. I followed a cairned ledge system above the largest snowfield nearly to the northeast ridge where the rock was a bit more solid, then followed this the remaining distance to the summit. The views from the top were similar to Mount Lyell, although with a much better vantage of the Lyell Glacier itself, along with a unique perspective on Half Dome and El Capitan in Yosemite Valley to the west.
I finished off the last of my water and started back down, reversing my steps back to the col to put my crampons back on one last time. I had hoped to glissade the steeper parts of the glacier and snow field, but much of it was too soft to make any progress and I started to experience some of the worst post holing of the day the lower I got. Whatever time I was hoping to make up on the descent was not going to happen, sinking hip deep in spots as I slogged back down the slopes. I took off my crampons and filtered water at the granite slabs, and scrambled above the remaining patchy snow getting back to the PCT shortly before 5 PM with at least 10 miles between me and the car.
I started down the trail, taking a short break to filter more water at the Lyell Forks bridge and reaching the long meadows along the Lyell Fork shortly after 6. The summits of Mount Lyell and Maclure were bathed in the afternoon light, but I would not see the sun the rest of the day in the deep canyon.
It was a bit disheartening passing backpackers getting in their tents for the night when I still had 6 miles to get back to the car (let alone the 3 hour drive home), but I got a second wind after bumming some ibuprofen off a backpacking trio when I was hobbling past. For as long as Lyell Canyon felt on the way in, it felt double on the way out. I was about a mile from the trailhead when I needed my headlamp, taking a very short break to chat with a trail runner I had spotted on the Lyell snowfields on my descent that had turned back before the summit. It was about 9:15 when I made it back to the trailhead, the entire outing taking over 17 hours, about 3 hours longer than I had planned (although it was 4 miles longer than I had planned based on my GPS track). This late finish also meant that there were no dinner options open anywhere near by, sadly reaching Oakhurst for a hollow victory meal of Taco Bell ten minutes before they closed at midnight….