Re: Ridge Twixt Upper & Lower Cathedral Lakes?

hey all,

will be approaching cathedral lakes from the northeast (on jmt) on my way to tenaya pk next month (gawd, i can't wait!). looking at mi topo, i was originally thinking i had to proceed southwest on the jmt and round columbia finger before heading back (cross-country) northwest to tenaya pk. however, noticing the rising ridge twixt upper/lower cathedral lakes, i was wondering if i could proceed directly southwest up said ridge, directly to tenaya pk?

i know whatever route i take will be fantabulous, but i just love disecting/analyzing the route (read: over-thinking things to death) and talking with y'all about a place we all love.

You know you can fairly easily draw a map and show what you mean?

That way people don't necessarily have to disect what you are saying.

I have not been up 10450 myself... but have done most of this route.
It without question is do-able:
Clicky here for a route

Check out gmap4 (the link is below). With a bit of goofing around you can draw a route like I did there.
If you have questions about how to do it... can help.

But thanks for asking questions like this. I love this stuff.

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thanks chick,

ok, how do you save and attach a highlighted route to this here site?

You know what? It's actually kind of a pain in the rump.
So I'll take back what I said. Prob. the easiest is to just do a screen capture
draw with paint and throw it up on Picasa.
To get a track like I showed you have to draw the track, save the gpx file,
host the gpx file on something like google sites, then point to that file via gmap4.
If you look at the help you can find out how to do it.
Or you can just describe it. So ... nevermind.

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chick-on
You know what? It's actually kind of a pain in the rump.
So I'll take back what I said. Prob. the easiest is to just do a screen capture
draw with paint and throw it up on Picasa.
To get a track like I showed you have to draw the track, save the gpx file,
host the gpx file on something like google sites, then point to that file via gmap4.
If you look at the help you can find out how to do it.
Or you can just describe it. So ... nevermind.

If you just want to share a map temporarily, you can point gmap4 back to the URL it generates for the gpx file like so:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4/gpx_download/20120501_1661031592.gpx

It works for a few days at least...

Yeah, I should have mentioned that but wasn't sure if it would go away as you say.

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How did you know I was thinking of going that route?
(although I'd park on the south side)

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chick-on
How did you know I was thinking of going that route?
(although I'd park on the south side)

I'm of the opinion that you are constantly thinking of going every route everywhere in the park.
And the amazing thing is that, unlike most people, you seem to be able to actually make it happen!

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Bearproof

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chick-on
How did you know I was thinking of going that route?
(although I'd park on the south side)

I'm of the opinion that you are constantly thinking of going every route everywhere in the park.
And the amazing thing is that, unlike most people, you seem to be able to actually make it happen!

Yeah. I'm a bit of a nutjob. I know. Want to go up Vog. Peak week after next?

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chick-on
I have not been up 10450 myself... but have done most of this route.
It without question is do-able:
Clicky here for a route

I've been up to 10450' twice and on the ridge between Tressider and 10450'. The route you show along the ridge is not possible for normal hiking. It's easy to get on the ridge using your route but as you get to the end of the elongated topo oval there's a big drop off. We could not find a way to get down it without ropes. The image I've attached is the way we hike up there. Follow the red line. It's only 1.2 miles from Tioga Road to Lower Cathedral Lake. You take the path across the meadow at Lower Cathedral, go over the flat granite area to the dirt trail. Just before you enter the forest on the dirt trail, go right off the trail and head up slope towards the ridge separating Lower and Upper Cathedral Lakes. Don't try to climb up the steep part of the ridge. There's a gap in the ridge to cross over. It's above an open grassy area that can be seen on Google Earth. Stay in the forest but follow the ridge up until you leave the trees. Then just walk up the ridge between the two lakes. The final ascent to 10450 is steep but there is a way up it.

I added an orange line that shows a slightly easier way up to 10450 if there's no snow. There's a granite slope to walk up right at the very end but it's pretty easy then it's a stroll to 10450.

The blue line shows another easy way up to the ridge but you can't get past where the blue line ends. Also you can't get down the other side to Tenaya Peak since it very steep on the west side in that area.

We looked at going to Tenaya Peak and it looks like the initial descent from 10450 would be easy. I don't know after that. The second image below is a pan from the spot that you can't get to 10450. The pan runs from 10450 to Tenaya Peak. It doesn't look too hard from that vantage point.

hmm, so it looks like i will have to circumnavigate southward around cape horn, i mean columbia finger, to get to tenaya peak. oh wo is me.......

I don't understand. If you can get up to 10450, you should be able to hike down the west side. We only had 15 lb daypacks but it wasn't that hard to get up there.

Me either. Most of that area is wide open and xcountry is very easy.
If you say the blue is not-dobable... ok... but for sure you can zig down 50 ft or so
and go around. When I did Columbia Finger and Tenaya Peak I went thru
this area... but was too lazy to go up 10450 and Tress.

Thanks

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ok, now i'm confused -- i thought i just read calaveras' 1145am post to say that you can't get to tenaya pk from 10450?

sorry for my confusion.

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mtc
ok, now i'm confused -- i thought i just read calaveras' 1145am post to say that you can't get to tenaya pk from 10450?

sorry for my confusion.

Pretty much what he said, and he can smack me up if I put words into his mouth, that the
ridge itself has a point where you "cliff" out and to go further all the way to 10450 you
would have to go back down and around... or go a different way entirely.
If your only goal is Tenaya Peak then you can go thru the saddle there and drop down
and skip 10450. (i.e. straight up the blue and continue towards that little pond there)
There's a number of ways to go about it. No question. You reminded me of a super
quick way up that I need to write down (hi bearproof) and do. If time permits... I may
just do that in a week or so.
Anyway, click on the Route above again and select Sat. view... and zoom in...
and you will see the yellow route he drew in.

For further analysis.... here's two pictures of the area... it's just wide open and simple xcountry
as I mentioned before.
Tressider and some famous Spire Type thing-a-ding:


View towards Tenaya Peak from a bit further north:


If I should go in that area this year I'll throw some more at you.

Have fun

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chick-on

Pretty much what he said, and he can smack me up if I put words into his mouth, that the
ridge itself has a point where you "cliff" out and to go further all the way to 10450 you
would have to go back down and around... or go a different way entirely.

You have it exactly right. The image below shows the routes up to 10450 that I have taken. The red line is the shortest but requires a little class 2 to get up the rocks where I have the jagged lines. That is not the exact path. The orange line is easy when there's no snow. Where the line crosses that patch of snow there is slab of granite to walk up, fairly steep but short. There was no snow when I did it. Once at the top it is a stroll to 10450. The blue line is the easiest way up but you can't get past where I have labeled "cliff." It doesn't look like there is a cliff in this view but there is. We had to come back down and take the yellow route.

What I don't know is if you go up the blue route and turn left, is there a way to go west down off the ridge. There might be. I wasn't able to see it from my vantage point and our goal was 10450, not to go over to Tressider. Maybe we'll do that this year.

This is part of a large panoramic image taken from the ridge south of Cathedral Peak. (For some reason in my two browsers I'm not able to left/right scroll this image so you may need to copy and open it in a different application to see the whole thing.)





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2012 08:31AM by Calaveras.

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Calaveras

This is part of a large panoramic image taken from the ridge south of Cathedral Peak. (For some reason in my two browsers I'm not able to left/right scroll this image so you may need to copy and open it in a different application to see the whole thing.)

Here you go:

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Calaveras

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2012 01:00PM by plawrence.

thanks, guys. awesome feedback!

You probably have enough info to be dangerous....

But here's another map for fun... the black dots are the route I will take some day.
Scoped it out the one time I was in the area (the red are gps tracks).
I'm certain the black dots are do-able... well... I'm pretty certain...
I'm also fairly certain there are a bunch of climbing routes in that gully... but the
name of those routes alludes me at the moment.



Have fun out there

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Dozier Dome and Pennyroyal Arches are in that area.

Looks like an exciting route. Will you be bringing chick-on on your adventures?

Just for the record... we took this route to 10450 on the 28th.
Nothing too insurmountable... carrying a backpack...
YMMV. It's steep but doable... chances are most will say
"let's just stay on the trail" though.... have fun

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thanks chick,

thanks to all for input. planning on going up budd ck to budd lake, west over the saddle on south side of cath pk and down to upper cath lake. from there, up the ridge to 10450 and over to tenaya pk/mildred lake. that will be the extent of our bushwacking -- the rest of the week will be on trail. how were the muskitos last week?

For you... here is what 10,450 looked like on the 28th of May, 2012:


In 4 days out I saw a total of ONE mosquito UNTIL hitting Tuolumne Meadows on the 30th of May.
(there were none there on the 27th... covered in about 6 inches of new snow)

Have fun

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2012 05:43PM by chick-on.

Did you walk along the ridge between 10450 and below Tressider? We encountered about a 20' drop in the middle trying to head north. We gave up and went down below to the east and bypassed it.

Also, we've considered going to the north end of what makes up the Tressider Peak ridge, just below the north peak. Your route just past that spot. Is there any reason why we couldn't just walk up there? We do some off trail but no climbing.

The picture above is the GPS track of where we walked. Right along the ridge going to the highest point...
right over the cliff you mentioned. We just didn't see it. Maybe the snow gave a slight boost but we could
not see anything insurmountable even with no snow. Here's a picture looking south along that ridge:


What this should also show you is that you will be able to easily walk to the north end of Tressider. It will be an easy
walk up from Upper Cathedral or from 10450. Nothing difficult imo. I have not been up either end of Tresddier but
the north side is far easier than Tressider proper. Give it a go.

I have another picture or two further south if you are not convinced about the ease of getting to the N end of Tressider.

Have fun & hope this helps

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Thanks! It didn't look like that when we were there. I'll bet there was a snow bridge. I thought it looked fairly easy to walk up to the north end of Tressider. Maybe we'll give it a try this summer.

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Calaveras
I don't understand. If you can get up to 10450, you should be able to hike down the west side. We only had 15 lb daypacks but it wasn't that hard to get up there.

15 pounds? What all is in your daypack?

Camera equipment.

Well that explains why it was so heavy!

Thanks for the pics. I usually go North of Tioga, but that does look like some sweet crosscountry. I may have to check that area out. I was planning on going to Wegner off of Tioga next weekend, but that area south is looking really inviting...