Lower Cathedral Spire 5,880′
Sierra Nevada– Rock Climbing
Total Time: 9:00
Distance: 2.3 miles
Elevation Gain: 1900′
Crux: 5.7 A0
Pitches: 5
Protection: Double rack of cams #0.5-3, set of nuts, 70 m rope
Companions: Holly
Trailhead: El Cap Cross over, no services
As one final birthday gift, I wanted to do a more adventurous multi pitch climb in Yosemite for the fall season. After running through some options, we settled on the original route on Lower Cathedral Spire. First climbed in 1934, it’s one of the older routes in the Valley and although rated 5.9, the crux move is typically french freed off a single bolt, with the rest of the climbing 5.7 or less. There were only a few cars parked near the El Cap crossover when we arrived and started on the use trail into the forest.
I missed the initial turn off into the Cathedral Boulders area from the horse trail resulting in a short bit of cross country before picking it up again near the Hex Boulder. There were plenty of use trails around the bouldering area but we managed to keep on the correct path leading up into Spires Gully, taking the left branch as we did for Church Tower years before.
I could boulder hop upslope for hours to my heart’s content but this particular type of terrain is one of Holly’s least favorites, and she vowed to never make the approach up that gully again. I found the start of the climb a bit before the notch between Lower and Higher Cathedral Spires and flaked out our 70 meter rope to start the climb.
The first pitch starts up a dirty and awkward off width, rated 5.5 in the topo, although Holly would have much more difficulty unable to reach a good hand higher up. Once over the offwidth, I followed a ledge through brush and some small trees to start up a broken face and series of parallel cracks.
Starting up, I spotted the first piton of the route as the pitch wandered up weaknesses in the rock. I clipped a second piton, but found that the crack above seemed a bit harder than the advertised 5.6. So I unclipped the piton and traversed left across a ledge with a massive log, making an exposed but easy step around a corner to another piton, up to another ledge and rappel station build off a huge boulder. At this point the rope drag was incredible despite only have a few pieces in/ pitons clipped, and after failing to pull up more than a few inches, I started downclimbing the pitch the try and back clean more gear, hoping it was the step around the corner that was causing all the drag. I cleaned about 4 pieces before climbing back up to the belay, finding it slightly better but still absolutely horrible, giving myself a nasty rope burn pulling up the rope for Holly. Mercifully, the rope drag got considerably better once she reached the top of the offwidth and rounded the corner through the brush and trees- if I ever climbed this route again, I would do a quick belay here and make a very short first pitch. But the shenanigans of back cleaning and pulling up the rope wasted a solid hour, and we were quickly falling behind schedule for the day. The second pitch was thankfully much more straightforward, continuing up a gully to an obvious tree above on a huge ledge.
The climbing was mostly 5.4 – 5.5, with the hardest moves heading up a crack just below the tree. I quickly brought up Holly trying to make up lost time. The first two pitches of the Regular Route are shared with South by Southwest, a much more difficult and direct climb of the spire, and at 5.11a, well beyond my abilities. Instead our route followed the ledge system on third class terrain out right to its terminus at a bolt and start of the crux pitch.
I built an anchor at the crack at my feet and brought over Holly, the color draining from her face when she saw the next pitch. It wasn’t just that it required an aid move off a bolt, she had done that before, most notably on Ancient Art in Utah, and had been known to use a cam off her harness to pull through a move or two. But it was the fact that it was a very exposed traversing aid move, going from the narrowing ledge to several hundred feet of exposure and potential for a swing as a follower. We talked things through and she ultimately decided to press on, although she would be in her head the rest of the climb. I clipped into the bolt with a draw, and I actually felt like I had the height to make the move free, being able to reach a far side pull and more featured rock on the traverse. But I wanted to show Holly how the aid move was done, and pulled on the cord hanging off the bolt, pressing my feet off the wall and grabbing a huge undercling over to decent feet. I quickly plugged in a few cams, in part to give her more things to pull on to and to also limit any potential swings.
Now on the arete of the spire, I climbed upward clipping another piton and finding the rock quality wanting, at least by Yosemite standards (although still better than probably anything in the Superstitions or the Grand Canyon). Above the hardest stretch of climbing, probably around 5.7, I entered a dirty groove finding another piton at one last hard move getting around a boulder. Above this was an offwidth groove running up to the left with a boulder near the top, easily skirted to easier ground above where I built a belay off a tree. I wanted the pitch to be long in order to reach the summit in one more pitch, and there was only a few feet of rope in the system before it was Holly’s turn.
Holly took some time to collect herself before committing and, at least from my perspective, seemed to get through the pitch without incident. From here it was wandering third and fourth class to the summit, and I wasted little time starting up off the belay, following grooves to the left with one last annoying brushy filled ledge to battle through. Above this was a series of anchors used for slacklining with the true summit not far off to the right, our 70 meter rope just reaching it from the tree. I brought up Holly, having made up some time since the debacle of the first pitch. The summit was absolutely outstanding, with Higher Cathedral Spire and Higher Cathedral Rock immediately to the southwest. El Capitan stole the show across the Valley, although smoke from the prescribed burns in the Valley was obscuring summits in the high country.
The little time we had made up would now quickly be wasted looking for the rappel station. I had read that it was important not to use the slackline anchors for the rappel, as they were too far from the edge for a rope pull, and that the actual rappel anchors were closer to the edge. Holly put me back on belay and I scrambled back over to the slack line anchors, expecting to see the rappel anchors on the far side of the rock. Nothing. I scrambled down another tier, still finding no luck. The rappel anchors were the same anchors as the last pitch of South by Southwest, and I began to think perhaps the route finished lower down, partway down the third and fourth class summit slabs. So down further I went, again through the brush and again coming up empty. Deciding I had for sure missed it, I scrambled back up to the slackline anchors and spotted the two bolts on the backside of a block between the slackline anchors and the summit. Facepalm.
The whole thing wasted a solid 25 minutes, and I brought over Holly to start the first rappel. I was happy to find the bolts and anchors had been replaced for the rappel route just the month before, with the rappel route easily done with a single 70 meter rope. I went down first, passing a ledge and tree and finding the next two, brand new bolts on a narrow 1′ deep ledge. The second rappel leads to another two bolt anchor, this one completely hanging with the face slightly steeper than vertical, making it quite difficult to clean when the time came. This was made even more painful thanks to the large ledge I was staring at about 5′ below, although it was questionable if the 70 meter rope would have made it. To get Holly off the hanging belay quickly, I let her go first, rappelling back down to the large ledge at the top of the second pitch and tree anchor.
An easy rappel off the tree brought us to the cord anchor around the boulder at the top of the first pitch and after inspecting the cord, deemed it solid and finished the rappel back to the base, just a few feet above our packs. We sloppily packed our things, now trying again to make up for the lost time looking for the rappel. Unfortunately, the gully was steep enough and with enough loose rocks that it was difficult to move much faster on the descent, not really picking our pace until back in the boulders.
We made it back to the car taking about 9 hours in total, 1 hour longer than I had planned but still not needing headlamps. We headed out of the Valley, grabbing some pizza in Oakhurst for dinner before getting back home in time to put Avery to bed.