Church Tower 5480′
Sierra Nevada– Rock Climbing
Total Time: 10:10
Distance: 2.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 1900′
Crux: 5.6
Pitches: 5
Protection: Cams 0.5-4 with doubles of 0.5-2, extra webbing
Companions: Holly, Colin Pickles
Trailhead: Cathedral Rocks Climber’s pull off, full services in the Valley
In Yosemite Valley, directly south of the dramatic El Capitan is the Cathedral Group. The collection of peaks and spires is composed of at least 6 named summits (7 if you count Leaning Tower over Bridalveil Falls), the largest being Higher, Middle and Lower Cathedral Rocks. Tucked just to the east of these 3 large summits is 3 narrow spires. Higher Cathedral Spire is reported to be the tallest free standing spire in North America (I have not found this confirmed anywhere) and goes at 5.9 by its’ easiest route. Lower Cathedral Spire is also rated 5.9, although the crux move is easily aided off a single bolt, much like my recent adventure on Goliath. The smallest of the 3 spires is Church Tower, blending into the surrounding cliffs from most angles despite standing over 1,000′ above the valley floor. The easiest route on Church Tower is rated 5.6, although is by far the least climbed of the group despite the easier rating. That’s likely due to the arduous approach, with climbers with the capability to climb harder routes heading to the larger spires, and more novice climbers sticking to multipitch Valley routes with more friendly approaches. But we were looking for a Valley adventure with some technical climbing, and this fit the bill perfectly. We knew we had a long day ahead of us and drove into the Valley just after sunrise, parking at a pull off just before the turn off to El Cap Meadow. There was another twosome of climbers at the pull off getting their gear together, planning to climb the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral Rock, a major Yosemite classic line. Our day happened to be Halloween and the climbers were celebrating with a unicorn mask for their helmet. We too were in the spirit, with Colin dressed like a shark, Holly dressed as a horse, and myself dressed as Indiana Jones. It was too bad we would soon be so deep up canyon that no one would be around to appreciate our costumes.
Leaving our cars with heavy packs, we started up the climbers trail, quickly reaching a horse trail in the forest. We turned left and followed this for about 100 yards, turning right onto another climbers trail just beyond a shallow drainage across the trail. This climbers trail was well defined, and led to the Cathedral Boulders tucked into the forest. Unfortunately, the various bouldering options meant that the forest was braided with thin use trails, and we meandered upwards and lost the trail at one of the highest boulders. A very thin trail continued upslope into the forest, and we scrambled up loose rock and pine duff, Church Tower and the Cathedral Spires looming high above.
As our line became brushier, I checked my GPS track and noticed that we were one drainage too far to the east. We found a point to traverse through the woods into the next drainage west and quickly encountered a series of cairns putting us back on track. As we climbed higher, the views across Yosemite Valley to El Capitan opened up behind us, with Sentinel Rock to the east.
As we neared the base of the spires, it was difficult to pick out the summit of Church Tower, and I began to veer out of the gully in an attempt to locate the “five trunk” oak tree and start of the first pitch. I tried 3 different spots, each too low, before I found the correct start, essentially climbing up past the summit nearly in line with the saddle between Church Tower and Lower Cathedral Spire before traversing over.
Colin and I planned to swing leads for the route, Colin leading the first and third pitches while I led the second and fourth, the final being a toss up. The first pitch is rated fourth class although is realistically a bit tougher with a slightly overhanging chokestone to start the route. Colin racked up, Shark costume in full effect, and stemmed up and over the difficulty with a bit of mockery from us at the base. There was one more step to get up and over, a bit easier than the first leading to the first belay station off a tree near a notch on the east arete.
The second pitch is the crux pitch, a shattered and broken chimney up several steps to gain the upper ridgeline. I took in the gear from Colin and started up the pitch. I quickly passed a fix nut and continued past to an old fixed cam, at least 6 years old based on MP comments. The webbing on the cam looked suspect, so I placed my own next to it and chimney’ed up past a lower crux flake to a ledge about halfway up.
A bit of easier climbing led to the higher crux protected by an ancient piton. This also looked suspect and I backed it up with a cam before pulling the move up and over to a ledge just below the ridgeline. I was unsure if I needed to cut left or right near the top, and choose left first, gingerly stepping on loose rocks hoping not to send any hurtling towards the group below. As I rounded the corner, I faced major air and realized my mistake, slowly down climbing back to the ledge and spotting the obvious two bolt anchor to the right from above. Others have commented that it is worth while to climb past this two bolt anchor one more ledge up to help with rope drag on the third pitch, and I clipped the anchor and climbed up to a nice belay ledge with a deep crack to build a trad anchor with my remaining gear.
I brought up Holly and Colin who both struggled in the crux sections, surprised by the difficulty given the 5.6 rating. It was old school Yosemite after all. Colin’s struggles with the second pitch shook his confidence before his turn to lead, the third pitch heading up a crack to a narrow portion of the ridgeline and up another fractured face to a tree growing along the ridge. He somewhat reluctantly took the rack and started up the crack with a spot before placing his first piece, briefly moving to easier ground before a short narrow traverse. He got past this section quickly before reaching more challenging climbing, heading up a chossy crack to the tree on the ridgeline. Beta suggests climbing a bit past the tree before setting up a belay to again minimize rope drag on the final pitch. But Colin wasn’t feeling up to leading anymore and stopped at the tree to bring up Holly.
When she joined him, the two of them spent a good deal of time adjusting the anchor before bringing me up to the cozy belay.
Although the large belay tree looked solid from below, half its’ roots were exposed and I was worried what would happen if I fell on lead to the left side of the ridge, pulling the tree in the direction of the exposed and weakened root system. I tried not to think about it too much as I took the gear from Colin, making a big boulder move above the tree to regain the ridgeline and scramble on easier terrain a bit past. In fairness, I do think a belay station further in the boulders wouldn’t have been all that better or roomier. The arete narrowed with scattered boulders, and it became difficult to place protection not just for myself, but for Holly and Colin as followers.
I dropped to the right of the ridgeline then chimney’ed back up to a notch and the psychological crux of the climb, a tricky step around an overhanging bulge to the left with little opportunities for protection. I searched around for options, finding a small pod that probably would have taken a tricam (had I remembered to bring them), as well as a thin crack to the right of the move, too small for my smallest cam. I slotted a nut behind the crack giving it a few test pulls before gingerly making the step across the notch and moving around a corner. There was a place for a cam around a flake and I quickly plugged a small cam before mantling up to the final ledge below the summit block. While the fourth summit belay is traditionally done around the corner to the right of the summit block off a piton and crack, I was already experiencing significant rope drag due to the lower tree belay, and found the ledge I was on to be quite roomy for three people. So I slung a giant boulder and sat on it to bring up Holly, who had the benefit of a lead belay from below from Colin in the event of a fall on the traversing ridgeline. As she approach the belay, she quickly relayed to me that she did not enjoy that pitch, particularly given the rope drag she herself was experiencing from the tow line to Colin. Shark boy Colin on the other hand loved the pitch, enjoying the exposure and step across move.
The final short pitch to the summit traversed out right on a sloping ledge system around the corner, almost acting like a spiral staircase to the high point. The line almost seem improbable as I wandered around the corner, the ledge system seeming to end at multiple points only to reappear as I poked my head around the corner. The protection was decent with the occasional crack to plug a cam, along with a piton on the only tricky move of the pitch, a down sloping ramp with good hands up high to lead to a narrow platform 10′ below the summit webbing.
The final 10′ was roughly fourth class and I scrambled up the final bit to the summit anchors. Despite starting the final pitch at the base of the summit block rather than off the piton, the rope drag was almost negligible and I would recommend that belay option to anyone (although maybe push it a bit further on the third pitch.) I clipped into the five layers of webbing and cord wrapped around the summit block, then made my own anchor with my climbing rope before bringing up Holly and Colin. Despite the significant exposure, Holly and Colin both thoroughly enjoyed the uniqueness of the final pitch, an ascending catwalk traverse high above the valley floor with El Capitan directly across the valley. The summit block was certainly cozy with the three of us, and I stood on a ledge below the summit boulder while the three of us had snacks and took selfies in our Halloween costumes.
It was already after 3:45 PM with the sun setting at 6 PM, and if we wanted any hope of making it to the car before dark, we couldn’t linger at the top too long. So I set up the first single rope rappel, a full 30 meters to the saddle between Church Tower and Lower Cathedral Spire to a second rappel station off a large tree branch tucked out of the way to the right. It was conveniently positioned just below an overhang, giving us some protection from falling rock during the rope pull, and Holly came down second followed by Colin.
The second rappel can be done in one or two stages depending on the number and length of ropes one had with them. After adding some fresh webbing to the anchor, I tied our two ropes together and dropped over a short 15′ cliff, following a loose drainage under a small tree to a much larger cliff band. This second cliff band is supposedly rated fourth class although it was hard to see an easy line through, particularly given the loose rock and duff. I touched down on the loose soil at the base of the cliff and radioed ‘Off Belay’ for Holly then Colin to head down as well.
Holly got a head start back down to the packs, reaching them about 150′ further downslope from where we finished the rappels, not too far but quite steep and loose. After pulling the ropes (a lot of falling rocks!) and coiling them, Colin and I joined her at our packs with only a little over an hour before dark. We crammed what we could into our packs and started down the approach gully, stopping to marvel at the alpenglow across the Valley despite the urgency to get down before dark.
We made it past the point where we had traversed over on the ascent without needing headlamps, then dropped into the dark forest, turning on our torches for the last 15-30 minutes of hiking back out to the road. Thanks to a nearly full moon, El Capitan was fully illuminated and dotted with headlamps of parties ascending the big wall in prime season. We stopped in El Capitan Meadow on the way out to admire the climbers high up on the face and celebrate a successful spire summit high above across the Valley.