Matthes Crest

Yosemite National Park, California
August 8, 2021

So I am writing this on the approach hike to climb Mount Moran in Grand Teton National Park. It’s two weeks after our climb of Matthes Crest, but somehow I haven’t had the time to write the blog yet, so here we are. Matthes crest is a huge fin of granite in the Tuolumne area of Yosemite National Park. It drops steeply on both sides and is a classic scramble that Laura and I thought would be a great climbing adventure. 

Approaching Matthes Crest from the North

Two days after climbing Mt. Russell, we again woke up at midnight at the hotel in Bishop to drive to Tuolumne Meadows. We were hiking in from the trail head by 3 a.m. and were soon to the climbers trail that cuts off towards Cathedral Peak as marked by a sign with a carabiner, something you’re probably only seeing in Yosemite. The hike across to Budd lake was uneventful, we made quick work of it but went too far before turning off and climbing up the steep scree to access the col that you need to cross over to get to Matthes Crest. A little bit of scrambling and we were up and down and walking across the granite towards that gorgeous fin of rock. You can climb both ways, north to south and south to north. We chose to go north to south first and see how it went.

Some of the first towers reached on the North to South traverse

One of the trickier sections.  We bypassed the tower.

Working through some of the towers on the north ridge

Downclimbing one of the towers on the north ridge

Interesting wave formation along the route

View of the summit from along the north ridge

South to north is more popular but going the opposite direction is slightly more difficult climbing so we chose that direction. When we reached the narrow part of the ridge we roped up and simuclimbed in several pitches most of the ridge north to south. 

There were several very exposed and tricky traverses and step across moves that made the climbing a lot of fun. 

Some of the many towers we had to get over

One of the step across moves

Final pitch to the summit

We climbed up to the north most tower and highest point along Matthes Crest and rather than continuing on, downclimbing a significant portion of rock we chose to rappel down. 

Summit register on Matthes Crest

Justin reading the summit register

On the summit of Matthes Crest

Since it was still early in the day we walked across and then climbed the ridge south to north. This direction was mostly a fourth class scramble but was enjoyable and only took us a little over an hour.

Roping up to start the ridge from the south

First pitch of climbing from the south

View toward the summit from the south ridge

Climbing along the ridge

Final pitch to the summit from the south

While the smoke from the wildfires was fairly thick, we were above it and the views were amazing. We could see the smoke hanging down below us in the valleys and we were thankful that we had clear air to breathe and enjoy this beautiful place. After we completed the south to north direction, we again rappelled the same gully and started our short hike back out. This time we would go a different direction than how we had came in. We decided to hike out over Cathedral Pass and past Cathedral Lakes and experience another beautiful area of Yosemite that we had not been through before. It seemed like a backpackers paradise near Cathedral Lakes and it didn’t add more than a mile distance to the round-trip. We were back at the car by 3 PM happy teddy bear didn’t break in and eat all of our toothpaste

Our rack was a single set of cams .4- 3 and a half set stoppers