On Wednesday, August 31st, we had a simple plan. Climb the Northwest Arete of North Peak and continue on to the North Ridge of Mt. Conness. I had done it about a decade ago with Pat Kolker and didn't remember anything unusual about it. There are two towers on the North Ridge that require rappelling to continue, which sounds straight forward. Rappelling means going straight down with gravity. Needless to say we summited. However, it ended with hours of climbing in the dark and a descent in darkness on a very non-moonlit night. And a headlamp that whose batteries were dead halfway down the trail. Luckily, it could have been colder (it was warm enough). The trip went like this: we left the Valley at 5am. We started hiking at 7am. We summited North Peak at 11am. We spent around 5 hours on the 3 different rappels throughout the afternoon. We summited Mt. Conness around 11pm. We finally got to refill our water at Alpine Lake on the descent at 1230am. We reached the car parked at Saddlebag Lake at 330am. And I drove us back to the Valley, getting home at 530am. I sold the trip as being 8-9 hours- maybe next time. (We now, and forever, will remember the direction of each rappel on the climb.) The top three postcards are from the first half, North Peak. The bottom three are from the second half, Mt. Conness. After the second tower I put away my camera while we got serious because it was getting late. Enjoy these snapshots.
It took me awhile, but here they are. Postcards of a trip thru the Grand Canyon of the Tuolomnee last Wednesday, Sept 7. We have the following views: a) Hetch Hetchy; b) the view down into the entrance; c) Indian Hieroglyphics in Pate Valley; d) a nice sidewalk; e) the view from the top of the rim after Muir Gorge; f) Waterwheel Falls. Enjoy.
