North Peak / Mt. Conness Solo Linkup 09/20/19

September 20, 2019 - North Peak and Mount Conness Linkup

The night before, I drove up from Los Angeles and arrived at the Tioga Lake Parking Lot at around 2am.  I knew it was going to be rough waking up for an alpine start the next day, but I was too excited to think about changing that plan.

At 5am (my leisurely alpine wake up time), it was in the low 20's and then I realized I had forgot how cold it can get up here by September.  I guess it had been a generally warm spring/summer in the mountains up until the past week and I forgot.  I decided to have a slow morning and have a good breakfast, pack my day bag, and not rush anything since I had all day to do this.  At the time, I was undecided to climb North Peak or Mt. Conness but my plan was to hike towards them until I look up and had a better idea.

Both the NW ridge of North Peak and North Ridge of Mt. Conness were similar in being straightforward ridges with plenty of exposure but the North Ridge of Mt. Conness was supposed to be a bit more serious.



I didn't hit the trail until 6:30am.  I thought right away that I just pissed away a couple of hours and would be regretting that scrambling who-knows-where in the dark.  Then again, it was still about 24 degrees and doing 4th class moves in the dark in that temperature would be horrendous. I eventually found myself on the ridgeline north or north peak at 8:30am.  When the sun hit me 30m before, I was so relieved to go from 3 layers down to 2.  I also took a little break just west of the last lake to soak up the sun and eat a couple bars.

Hiking/Scrambling along the ridgeline was so fun!  Amazing views and the climbing was anywhere from 2nd class to 4th class.  Occasionally, some freezing wind would rip up the canyon from Upper McCabe Lake. It was such a beautiful lake and I've been recently stoked on fly fishing so I kept looking around for easy ways to hike up to this lake for future endeavors.



Slowly the ridgeline became a bit more serious with some mandatory 4th class sections.  Everything was type 1 and nice until I was forced on anything NW facing.  The area had some precipitation a day or two prior and the hail or snow flurries were left for me to stress about.  Every little ledge and handhold suddenly was cold, wet, and sketchy.  "One move at a time" I kept telling myself.  After the sun was up and thawing things out, I found myself doing easy 5th class moves (5.3 or so at hardest) up a beautiful ridgeline with great rock, spectacular views, and no one in sight!

In my RJ Secor book, it talks about maybe 6 or so other routes up north peak so it was cool to check those out from a distance. Even though the ridgeline is long, it went quick with most of the route being rock hopping and scrambling.

 

Before I knew it, I was hiking the final class 2 section before the summit!  10:30am.. not too bad.  I remembered talking with Amber the night before about calling if I had service up there.  After walking down 100' feet from the summit, I got to facetime her for about 10 minutes and see her and see my daughter as well.   

From the summit of north peak, I went south and hiked an easy path down to the start of the north ridge of conness where I would decide if I truly wanted to tick off two mountains in a day.  Previously, I was more against this idea than for it, but it was still in the AM hours, the weather was beautiful, and I had plenty of energy, food, and water, so I decided to check it out.  The climb can be separated into two sections; before the second gendarme and after the second gendarme (or tower).  Prior to the 2nd gendarme, most of the climbing is scrambling with occasional 4th or 5th class moves.  However, after the second gendarme, the climbing is on slightly more treacherous terrain with mostly 4th class and up to 5.6.  

At about 11am, I found myself nervously looking forward to the ridgeline.  From a distance, getting over these towers looked 5.10 X, so I slowly and cautiously continued.  I kept saying to myself that if I ever got too sketched, I can always come back the way I came, go back, and fish (not a bad option).  With that in mind, it was easier to press on and by 12pm, I was sitting up top the second gendarme.  Unfortunately, the technically crux of the route is also the mental crux cause I was going solo AND the rock was kitty litter.  The whole day has been climbing on surprisingly solid rock up until this point.  I made the 5.5 downclimb no problem, find myself off route a ways, pickup the main 5.6 downclimb (big dihedral in pic belo) and back into the notch between the last gendarme and the summit.  Phew!  I think I even gave the rock a big fat kiss out of gratitude.  Only 4-5 more pitches of easy 5th class climbing according to my guide.





Found a cool chimney downclimb which was less exposed so I took it.  From here, it was FUN climbing that was only slightly sketchy and climbing up to 5.5 maybe.  The climbing up here reminded my of the last 400' of Fairview Dome.  It seemed to go on and on and it also looked a bit harder than 5.6, but after finding my route, never actually went that hard. I took the path of least resistance since I was alone.



And of course, like all peak-bagging, there were many false summits.  Because of the sketch factor, I was pretty let down each time.  After another hour of climbing, I summitted Mt. Conness at 2pm only 3.5 hours after summitting North Peak.  A HUGE wave of relief came over me knowing the hardest was behind me.  Keep in mind, for all day, I kept going for miles and miles knowing the hardest part lie ahead.  Well now, I can just eat my PB+H sandwich (peanut butter and honey) and go back down.  I spent about 20 minutes up there and enjoyed the amazing views.  The entirety (fine.. 90%) of Tuolumne Meadows can be seen.  Also, grand canyon of Yose, half dome, mt. lyell, sawtooths, Mt. Ritter, and more...





Going down was a ton easier (sometimes it's not) and I hiked past these weird bulbous rock formations that reminded of Joshua tree rocks.



The way down took a real long time.  I hiked past this group of two that was going up.  Being the first people I've encountered all day, I did one of those awkward full arm wave.  The path down started 3rd class down to a big plateau, then down more rock scrambling to a small alpine lake, then down a drainage, and finally down to an established trail.






I looked at the clock on my phone and realized it was only about 3:45pm which meant I was sub 10-hours.  For covering so much ground (13 or so miles total) of mostly ridge scrambling, I was feeling pretty good and hiked as fast as I could towards the car.  Unfortunately, the trail spits you out at the road to Saddlebag lake where you then walk 0.5 mile up to the road.  The trail was nice the valley where Carnegie Institute is very beautiful.  All the ruins you see from hiking through it is a couple signs and a decommissioned cabin that's mostly collapsed. Supposedly, the Carnegie Institute still does high elevation research on the trees and shrubs in that area.

Below is my screenshot map where I overlayed my approximate path in orange.  According to my phone step counter (not accurate), I went 13.3 miles, 29k steps, climbed 249 flights.  Seemed about right.  The whole experience took exactly 10 hours.



After stretching and eating at my car, I waited until after 5pm until Yosemite Park Rangers abandons their post at the entry gate so I could drive in and fish at the Dana Fork.  With a sub-par tuna burrito in one hand (not delicious) and my new 9' fly rod in the other hand, I wander through the meadows in search of the fishies.  Cause this place was right off the road, the fish have grown accustomed to hiding from people making it nearly impossible to catch anything.  I caught one but only cause I casted while hiding behind a big rock.  At this point, I realized I left my phone in the car so I have no photo evidence of this fish but please believe me I did catch 1!

After dark, I drove to Lembert dome, attempted to cook some mac and cheese which I plugged my nose and ate anyway, another gross tuna burrito, and watched the climbers finishing their day on Lembert.  When I first arrived to cook dinner, I spotted a headlamp just topping out and yelled down "off belay".  I listened to this group yell back and forth attempting to get communication but found little success.  It was slightly amusing only cause I didn't have to go up there to save them nor was I on the mountain anymore.  After an hour of this, the two followers were finally also at the top and conversations like "did you not hear me?" were had.  Newbs.... :)



Later, I drove to the Hot Tub hot springs, enjoyed the quiet nighttime scenery, and slept in the same place I did the last night... in the back of my '01 Forestor. Great Day in the Sierras!

Stats:
Left TH:  6:30am
Top of ridgeline: 8:30am
Summit of North Peak: 10:30am
Beginning of North Ridge: 11:00am
Summit of Conness: 2pm
Back at TH: 4:30pm