Tuolumne Sample Pack

I just wrapped up a week climbing in Tuolumne, topping out domes and jumping in Tenaya Lake at every opportunity. I was joined by a rotating cast of climbing partners from the area, and overall it was a great introduction to the region, where I was lucky enough to exclusively climb four-star classic routes.

My general impression of Tuolumne is that the rock is super high quality granite and the setting is strikingly beautiful, but the multipitch climbing itself is wander-y and tends to only be classic in short segments (I haven't tried any of the single pitch yet). Most climbs tend to be about 4ish pitches long maximum, and a lot of the first and last pitches are throwaway low-angle stuff. That being said, when the movement is good, it's really good. There's just a lot of traversing and faffing and slightly involved walk-offs to deal with in between the good bits of climbing (what I've started calling the "Tuolumne Tax").

West Crack (5.9, 3p)

The first thing I got on in Tuolumne was West Crack, on DAFF Dome, a super-classic moderate. It starts with a bolt-protected 5.9 crux (two moves of face climbing on knobs), but the rest of the route is 5.8 or easier. I climbed it with Kolby Mitnick, who I'd connected with via a Mountain Project partner post, and normally lives in the Bay Area but is enjoying a summer up in Mammoth for better climbing access. Pitch 1 was an enjoyable long romp up a low angle crack that varied from hands to off-fingers with a bolted anchor. Pitch 2 involved an interesting roof start that gives way to low-angle wide-ish crack, where Kolby set the belay below a finger crack. The finger crack to start was fun but short-lived, and then you get too close to the top of the dome for good climbing and basically just walk up the slabs to a ramp and take that left to a very short crack that deposits you on the summit. All in all, it's about 2.5 pitches of quality climbing straight off the ground, then low angle rambling for another 70m or so to the top. Still, a great introduction to Tuolumne granite!

Cooke Book (5.10a, 4p)

After finishing West Crack with the whole afternoon ahead of us, Kolby and I decided to step up to Cooke Book, another classic route on DAFF Dome that clocks in at 5.10-. I found West Crack to be fairly soft for the grade, but Cooke is quite stiff for .10a in my opinion – a very physical 5.10 with sustained insecure laybacking, sections of tricky pro, and a very friction-dependent crux. Compared to something else in Tuolumne that gets 5.10- like American Wet Dream, it's both more sustained climbing and harder movement in the crux. Pitch 1 starts with fun crack movement and a really interesting traverse under a roof with good holds, then transitions to super awkward and physical 5.8 offwidth in an angled slot.

From there, there's either a confusing traverse pitch that is hard to protect for the second, or a 40' rappel to gain loose flakes that you can then re-climb and set up another belay to the left. Either option kind of detracts from the route in my opinion; we chose to do the rappel since Kolby didn't want to risk a pendulum fall while following the traverse; in the future I think there are ways you could probably protect the second on this pitch by running it out a bit after the traverse before placing gear to somewhat reduce the pendulum factor (would still be unpleasant). We belayed at a big ledge left of the route and then I linked the final two pitches, somewhat by accident. In the future I'd probably opt to pitch it out, as the unavoidable rope drag from almost 50m of rope running over featured granite in the dihedral was not much fun to deal with in the crux, which comes about 2/3rds of the way up the final pitch.

Overall, the route felt worth doing for the first and fourth pitches, but the weird traversing second pitch and blocky, low-quality third pitch were the "Tuolumne Tax" for this one, I guess.

American Wet Dream (5.10b, 4p)

After Kolby had to head back to work, I linked up with Cameron Cutting, another Bay Area climber who I'd connected with via a mutual friend. He had a late start getting out to Tuolumne, so we found ourselves hanging out at Tenaya Lake around 3:30, wondering what we could get on that was in the shade. American Wet Dream on the Mountaineer's Dome is a 4-pitch 5.10b which got an R-rating when it was originally put up, but now climbs completely safely with modern small gear and a bolt that was added to the start of the 3rd pitch. It takes an interesting stair-stepping line up the dome, where each pitch is a short section of maybe 10-15m of steep and high-quality crack climbing, followed by a long traverse leftwards along huge ledges to a belay at the base of the next short crack system. Overall, I thought it was a great way to spend an afternoon in the shade in Tuolumne, and it's ideally located for a pre or post-climb lake dip in Tenaya Lake. The climbing was thoughtful and steep, and all of the belays were on gigantic, extremely comfortable ledges!

On the Lamb (5.9, 4p)

On the Lamb is a weird one – the standout pitches of the route are 100% horizontal traversing in a perfect dike system across the middle of Lamb Dome. I'm not a huge fan of traversing routes to be honest, but Cameron was really stoked on doing it and it had a reputation as a Tuolumne classic, so I was game. Before the actual meat of the route starts, there's a bunch of 4th class up a water runnel and then 5.5 unprotected slabbing before a low angle flaring crack that takes you up to the dike proper - more or less a pitch and a half of random faff prior to getting into the actual business of the route.

Once you're actually in the dike, the climb is very unique - basically a splitter hand traverse on jugs, where the only variation in the movement comes from whether or not you have small knobs on the slab below for feet or have to resort to (good, very secure) smearing instead. Then, after about one and a half rope lengths of traversing, the route dumps you on a ledge about 200' below the true summit of Lamb Dome and you have the option to either do a fairly straightforward walk off back to your car, or continue on to link into a climb on Drug Dome or Mariuolumne Dome. We'd talked about trying to link into Oz or Hobbit Book, but by the time we'd finished On the Lamb, both routes had started to bake in the sun, so we opted to walk off and chase shade on Phobos instead (after an obligatory lake dip)

Phobos (5.9, 3p)

Phobos is another high-quality Tuolumne climb that gets afternoon shade, which seems to be something of a rarity! We got on it around 4pm, and while the cliff had full shade, the approach was 30min of steep uphill in full sun. Phobos starts with a short roof bypass pitch where you stem your way up into a blocky roof system, then cut hard right to the base of a system of twin cracks. The main attraction is the second pitch, where you swim up two parallel steep hand cracks for about 40 meters – the climbing is sustained, well protected, and just plain fun with none of the traverses or runouts that I'd come to expect in Tuolumne. After the hand crack, the climb ends with a straightforward "offwidth" pitch that protects with wide gear but actually climbs quite nicely as a face climb, with no offwidth grunting required. I apparently took zero pictures of the actual climbing on Phobos; I think I was having too much fun with the climbing!

After a bushwhack of a walk-off, I said goodbye to Cameron and headed down to Lee Vining for cell service and a rest day before heading back into the park for one more big day on the domes.

Europop (5.8, 4p) + Hobbit Book (5.7, 4p)

I met up with Liz at the Tuolumne Meadows campground after a day of torrential thunderstorms where I hid under my tarp and read almost halfway through Robert Macfarlane's Is A River Alive? (great book). Liz and I met the week prior while climbing with mutual friends at Lover's Leap, and we'd made plans for me to rope gun a linkup of Eurotrash/Europop into Hobbit Book for a super classic moderates day, and Liz's first ever day on the Tuolumne granite!

Hobbit Book is up on Mariuolumne Dome, which is a huge grind to approach via hiking since it sits all the way above Drug Dome, way above the valley floor. Instead, we chose to climb the moderate bolted route Eurotrash which takes a direct 4-pitch "line of most resistance" up the steepest part of a clean low angle slab right up to the base of Hobbit Book. It's fun and easy movement and the all-bolts nature of the climb makes for very quick climbing, especially if linking P2 and P3 as we did. The original Eurotrash line has a contrived 5.10c mantle crux on the final pitch, but fortunately there's a nice alternate finish called Europop that keeps the grade in character with the rest of the route at a comfy 5.8.

After finishing Eurotrash/Europop, we had a snack on the massive ledge at the bottom of Hobbit Book before pulling onto the route. Hobbit Book is 3 pitches of straightforward easy crack climbing in a pleasant dihedral, split by 1 pitch of incredible (but also super run-out) face climbing on a vertical golden face with big juggy holds that feel like they came straight out of a climbing gym. As someone leading well below my limit, it was a super fun and enjoyable pitch, but the runouts are quite serious (1 bolt protects nearly 120' of climbing with minimal opportunities for other pro) so I don't think it's a great route for someone who isn't comfortable more or less soloing 5.7. The final pitch is mostly crack again with a cool face traverse around a roof, and it ends with a beautiful summit view where you can see all the way past Tenaya Lake to Half Dome!

All in all, an amazing 8 pitch day that was all pure type 1 fun on great stone! (Plus, another perfect aprés-climb lake dip!)

Trip Notes

• Even though it's a lot less busy than Yosemite Valley, Tuolumne still felt pretty crowded on the weekend days that I was there. Midweek, however, was super chill.
• There's a sneaky pocket of Verizon service in the Wilderness Center lot at the turn-off for Tuolumne Lodge. No idea what's causing it - some kind of cell hotspot? Either way, it's very useful for coordinating plans, since the rest of the zone has virtually no reception.
• Tuolumne has many, many climbing routes. My overall sense is that not all of them are worth doing; a lot of stuff seems like it's there because somebody wanted an FA in Yosemite rather than it being an obvious, natural, and aesthetic line. Sticking to the highly-rated classics seems to be a good strategy, and pairs well with the minimal crowds relative to the Valley.