Our childhood Yosemite missions always stuck to the same basic format: Start in the high country, spend a few days winding down in elevation, zip up the Half Dome cables before finishing at Happy Isles for tasty treats, then cruise the valley farting around on boulders and day hikes. Repeat the following year.

Returning to the old stomping grounds, we find that times have changed. Happy Isles has been erased, and the traditional pilgrimages from Tuolumne to the Valley are chock full of humans in the summer. The permits for most backcountry trailheads have booked for weeks, but there is an exception- Mono Meadow is wide open. Dusting off the topo, we investigate the Illilouette drainage and find domes, ridges, and steep terrain, with the formidable Mt. Starr King lording over it all. The die is cast.



The plan is simple: Hump 5 days of stuff down to the creek, then set up shop and explore. The base of Starr King is only a few miles from the road, maybe we'll fire it the first day for style points.

20 minutes from the car and I'm already suffering from the load. On a gentle downhill. I foolishly decided that heading into the unknown with anything less than a "kitchen sink" kit of gear would be unsafe. So now with every switchback we curse the massive packs and thump our way through an old burn zone, the splendid views of Half Dome easing the pain.


Starr King has many defenses to thwart the impure heart, the first of these we encountered was a lack of good campsites with water anywhere near the approach. The creek is far, far below the flanks of the dome, so we snuggled up to a mostly-dry stream bed that had a few trickles collecting in pools deep enough to dip a bucket, and set up shop. At this point the sun was well into the western sky, so we abandoned hopes of summiting the first day and did a recon mission of the approach instead.

Holy Crap! There is no easy way to get up to the base of Starr King. A fortress of burn zone guards the granite- the best way through dense spiky brush is by walking on top of a network of downed trees. The largest logs rise above the level of the brush so you can make it across relatively unscathed as long as your balance holds true... The nightmare scenario is pitching off a log eight feet down into the thorns- the squirrels would finish you off long before your partner could even find your corpse.


The recon paid off in that the approach the next morning took us half the time to get to the base of the regular SE face route. Turns out we didn't wake up early enough, as we got stuck behind a Euro party of four, and a rowdy group from some gym in west L.A....

Just kidding, we were the only ones within miles and the silence up there is spooky. The route itself is clean rock that feels exposed despite it being low angle because you're so high above the surrounding terrain:


You can space out for hours on the summit, slowly turning in circles getting hit with memories from all sides...


From the top of the peak you can scan the parade of golden domes lining the drainage and choose your next objective. We originally planned to put up a new 5.12 on each of the ten or so formations within a day's hike, but after 2 nights of camping in the dust and ashes we scrapped that plan and headed to the creek instead.


The topo looked to be holding a delightful little section of rock a short distance from the trail. My oh my our instincts were true and we soon beheld a fantasy river gorge that offered a string-of-pearls chain of swimming holes bounded by moderately angled slab a few hundred feet tall. Of the many possible routes up the wall we chose this one based on its proximity to the biggest, deepest pool...



After down-leading a different route back to the creek, we turned our attention to pool-jumping logistics. The biggest and bestest pool was protected by steep rock, but a 3rd class ramp led up to a tree less than a rope-length above the water. A hand line and arm rappel allowed access to the "exit" point-


Spirits refreshed, the next day we navigated the brush maze again to do some top-roping on Dome Baez. (Who the hell lugs a ton of gear into the backcountry to toprope a dome with 5.11 multi-pitch routes on it? I do.)

Rather than climb back up to the car at Mono Meadow, we descended to the valley to backpackers camp, sampled some moderate routes then hitched back to the car to continue the trip in Tuolumne/ Mono Lake. From that point on we were on popular stuff you've seen a zillion times so just a photo recap...