The weather people had issued a Severe Weather Warning after the rain on Monday: "Severely Perfect", that is. Cool, sunny, very good visibility. So we snagged a couple of nights in Curry Village, and drove up from the Bay Area on Wednesday. Spent Wednesday afternoon hiking up to Sierra Point (see link: SierraPoint) and looking at stuff in the nearby touristy areas.
But Thursday was hike day. My hiking buddy had done the North Dome Gully once, and I knew all about Basket Dome. So why not just do them both?
Well, it's sort of a "It's tough to get there from here" sort of thing. Here is our route:
Waypoint 4 is the bathrooms on the road to Mirror Lake. Waypoint 5 is the top of Washington Column. That's a ten mile loop, including a descent on the Snow Creek Trail. There was another mile and a half, or so, on the valley floor starting from the bus stop, and on the return, a direct hike to Curry Village.
I met a bear on the hill just above the bathroom. We conversed for a while, and then she ambled off.
So why is this a bad idea for a hike? Well, first, it involves going up the climber's descent trail in North Dome Gully. More about that later. Second, the route up from Washington Column directly to North Dome is guarded by impenetrable brush and boulders beyond the top Washington Column, then a band of smooth rock. Lacking any info on that route, we elected to follow the climbers' use trail over to the top of the Royal Arches climb, a descent of about 600 feet from the top of the gully. From there I knew from past hikes that you could ascend relatively easily on the west bank of Royal Arches Creek. One can then pick up the trail from Yosemite Falls to North Dome, and head over to Basket Dome from there.
The top of the route is just a few feet shy of 8000 foot elevation, a 4000 foot climb from the valley. With the dip down from Washington Column, plus drops to the saddles of North and Basket Domes, there is over 5000 feet of climbing to do, most of it off trail. Based on my feelings afterwards, I would say that this made for a tougher day than doing either the Half Dome Trail from the valley or the usual descent of Tenaya Canyon.
In our case, my buddy didn't want to go all the way past Arches Creek, and I wasn't willing to go straight up the slick rock, so we compromised by going up the lower left edge of the slick rock most of the way. I only had to duck into the bushes twice, where the rock was just too steep for me, but the brush along that edge is as thick as a hedge. Finally, he got tired of climbing sideways and climbed straight up (which eventually scared even him, unroped as he was), and I veered west until I got out of the thicket..
This a photo taken from near Sentinel Dome last year. 1 is the North Dome Gully. 2 is how high the route went (I could actually touch the base of the dome), before descending along a hard-to-see-on-the-photo ridge down to 3, the top of Washington Column. From this angle you can't see the impressive east face of Washington Column. 4 is the slick rock near the top of the Royal Arches climb, that we ascended along the base of for a long time. Eventually we caught the trail that comes up behind the ridge of False North Dome (higher than North Dome) at the left edge of the photo and then descends into the notch behind 5 North Dome. Thence to the saddle behind 6 Basket Dome, and so on....
I'm sure that an easier and more direct route up along the side of North Dome from Washington Column exists, but time was running out, and we didn't want to have to back off and try again.
We considered looking for Chick-on's lost camera on the descent towards Snow Creek. But we'd had our fill of tough brush for the day, and his photo scared us off. See link: ChickOnBasket Those white spots in his second photo are not bare spots. They are boulders surrounded by brush. Besides, my buddy wanted to get water at the Snow Creek Bridge, and that's not on the lower route. So we went on the higher route up to the ridge and then down towards Snow Creek.
Now, about the North Dome Gully. It's not a hiking trail. If you aren't a rock climber, don't try it. We did the original route, which is in the old guidebooks, and is easiest to find. Most climbers now come down a ledge-hopping variation for the upper third of the route, which goes more directly down from Washington Column and avoids the extra up and down. My buddy had come down that way once, following some descending climbers, and thinks that he would likely not find that route going up. People who get off route on this area tend to die.
Even the old route is too tough for me these days. Since I have arthritis in one foot, I have to wear mountaineering boots that are stiffer than boards on the bottom, and which don't conform to steep slick rock or stand well on little nubbins. Twice my buddy had to toss me a belay, in spots that would not have slowed me down in my own rock climbing days (fifty years ago). Still, we knew for sure that we were on the easiest route. Get lost, and it immediately gets much harder.
High up in the gully, where there isn't much exposure, there are some amazingly rotten fixed lines over what look like sand piles at the critical angle. They aren't. They consist of a quarter inch veneer of sand on a smooth granite fan, and your attempts to kick steps just bounce off. Not particularly dangerous, though you can slide for a very long way, but exciting nevertheless. The fixed ropes have already broken in several places and been knotted together at the breaks by passers by...
The next day I was a bit sore, so my buddy and I did Illilouette Ridge and Ostrander Rocks with his wife. The ridge is an ideal family beginner's bushwhack. I'll post more about that when I have time. See link: trip report
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2012 08:53AM by wherever.
