Matthes Crest    21 Aug 2005                           Map                                             Thumbnails

Well, it was worth a shot. Chari and I spent the night in the secret camprounds outside of Tioga Pass, and then headed into Tuolumne to be trailside by 7 am. We set off from Cathedral Lakes, taking the use trail toward Cathedral and then breaking off toward Budd Lake. We followed a faint use trail over some ledges before stumbling upon the very well trodden trail to Budd Lake.  Next time, we should stay on the Cathedral Trail a little bit longer until the obvious trail departs. Budd Lake offers an amazing view of Cathedral and the Buttress we had both climbed in previous years. It’s unfortunate the Park doesn’t allow folks to camp here, but with the easy access and proximity to Cathedral and Matthes, I can imagine the place would be trashed in no time.

We skirted around Echo Peaks to the west, hopping along rocks as we went.  Near the end of our traverse we descended to a wide bench of grass.  Hmm, we’ll aim here on the return trip. We came around the corner of the Peaks, and there was Matthes, spread out before us. The ridge of granite knifed through the sky stretching away from us to a notch with a few trees in it before jutting skyward again.  The notch is where we would start, ascending onto the ridge before traversing across it. But first we had to drop down some slabs, cross the forest, and come back up the other side. It was somewhere around 10 before we got to the notch and were ready to go.

Chari had first lead, and went up about half a pitch before deciding that was enough and set up an anchor. I followed up and took the next lead, which included an interesting step across onto a sharp, hollow-sounding flake. Once across, I was looking at some serious knobs which made for great climbing, although little protection. I went as far as I could with the rope drag and set up an unpleasant anchor that invovled a little bit of a leaning belay (not quite hanging). I had learned to make anchors, no problem, but I was still working on learning to locate them in good spots.

Chari came up and took over the next pitch, disappearing from view as she went over the rock.  When I followed, I came up on the crest and the bizzare view of the rope running through air, straight across from my section of the ridge to where Chari was belaying.  It looked like a thick telephone line between the poles.  Once I caught up to her we switched to simul-climbing, running the rope from me to her and back again, and tying in with ginormous knots. I lead up and away, and we did okay except for the first downclimb section.  It’s only 10 ft or so, but hairy. I wasn’t a big fan, and asked for an on-the-fly belay from Chari. When she descended it I anchored myself and then grabbed her harness in case she lost her balance.

We didn’t get too much farther.  Clouds had been building up in the Owens Valley for quite some time, and they were starting to run up the west side of us as well.  We heard the thunder to the east, and when the first strike occurred to the west, the decision was made. We were on a good spot for a rappel, too, so we took advantage.  We downclimbed 30m or so before rigging the rope to a tree with some existing slings.  From there we continued down with our single rope raps until we bottomed out 90 minutes after we started to descend.  We realized how lucky we were that we weren’t in real trouble that required a faster descent.  Of course, now that we were down the storm moved on and revealed decent weather.  Well, we couldn’t unmake our decision, and it was the right one anyway.  We trouped back out to the road, disappointed we didn’t finish the traverse, but a mazed at what we did get to climb,

               --matt