Cathedral Peak 5.6/5.7, Yosemite National Park

Who: Brad, Cydney and I (climbing party 1) Jeremy, Chad, and Billie (Climbing party 2)
What: Climb SE Buttress of Cathedral Peak
Where: Yosemite National Park, TH starts in Tuolumne Meadows.
When: 07/24/18
Why: Top 50 North American Classic Peak, top 10 climb...you get it...
Also...Sarah and I attempted this back in 2015...we managed to climb first 3 pitches before bailing. Wanted to come back and stand on the top.

Elevation gain from TH to the summit is about 2300' or so...
close to 3 miles to the base of the route...
on avg should take 1.5 hours to get to base, 2-4 hours to climb, 1.5 back from the top.
We started at 5:10 a.m. on the trail...
Started climbing a little after 7am...
Route is 5 pitches, 700' of glorious Alpine rock. Climb ranges from 5.6/5.7. We opted out for 5.7 variations on the route.
1st party reached the Summit at 11:00 a.m and 2nd party was on top by noon.
We we were back at car between 2-3pm. We stopped for a few minutes to cool off in Bud creek.

Cydney up the first pitch...I'm belaying from the top of pitch 1 under tree.

Brad coming up 5.7 chimney variation on 3rd pitch.

Making my way up the start of the 4th pitch chimney...4th pitch was my favorite pitch on the route.

Hanging out on ledge, start of pitch 5.

Better view of Pitch 5

This was a perfect day of climbing. There was on 1 party ahead of us...I kept meeting up with them at the end of each pitch, but the rest of the crew never saw them on the wall. They were long gone when I summited. We had the entire buttress to ourselves...no other party below us. We also had the Summit to ourselves. It was a beautiful bluebird day...dark blue sky above us...views as far as we could see. Each pitch went down as planned...perfect conditions, perfect stone, perfect day. I reached a goal of mine with partners I love...This climb is a gift.