My first trip to Tuolumne Meadows was in 1973 with Tobin Sorenson and Mike Graham. I was oldest at 18. In those days there was no guidebook to Tuolumne, and route information was gathered by word of mouth, or you simply went without.

We heard rumors of a recent, hard route put up by Kamps and Higgins, The Old Goats’ Route on Medlicott (1972). Kamps was staying a few camp sites away, so we walked over, intending to get some information about whether the route was completely bolt protected or might require crack protection. After introducing ourselves, Tobin, who was always polite, broached the question:

“Mr. Kamps, what do you need to do the Old Goat’s Route?”
Kamps looked us up and down and replied,
“Courage, boys, courage.”

After mustering the courage to do the Old Goats route and another one put up the previous summer, Sweet Jesus on Medlicott (Vandiver/Higgins 1972), we knew we were capable of establishing routes of our own, and turned our attention to unclimbed faces, which, in those days, were everywhere you turned.

On Daff Dome, we knew of only one route, the striking line of Crescent Arch, so one day we packed the bolt kit with the intention of exploring the wide open spaces to its right. There was another, smaller arch next to CA, a crack in an unusual, dark dihedral that leaned like a cobra in mid -strike, but this feature stopped halfway up the face. Here is a remarkable Gigapan photo of Daff which allows you to zoom in to such an extent that you can see individual knobs.

[url=" http://gigapan.com/gigapans/8112 "] http://gigapan.com/gigapans/8112 [/url]

It was the obvious line and it looked like it connected to a black water streak, which we knew could allow passage through otherwise blank faces. So we climbed it one day in July, 1973, and the quality of the climbing was pretty good, but we were disappointed that it wasn’t harder: we found no move more difficult than 5.8. To make up for that there were run outs on each of the three pitches. I led the first, Mike the second, and Tobin the third. Only one protection bolt was placed, in addition to the two for the first belay station at the end of the arch. We called it RCA (Right of the Crescent Arch), an acronym consistent with the Dome Across From Fairview.


Because I moved to Colorado in 1980 and life intervened, I didn’t make it back to the meadows for the decades of the 80, 90s, and 00s, until I traveled to Mammoth for Bachar’s memorial in 2009. In the interim RCA had been forgotten and was rarely done, the fate of many routes that fail to make it into the Supertopo guide.

Last year, 39 summers after my first visit, I met my old friend and Boulder neighbor, Ed Sampson, at the TM gas station. We wanted to get into the knob climbing groove, so we did Great Pumpkin on Fairview, a fine Kamps/Couch route that is only 5.8, but has some moves that give you pause, because they are a long way above protection. We were looking for another route in that vein, one with moderate difficulty but that would require some mental fortitude, so I suggested RCA. I searched ST to get some information on the route, since I remembered almost nothing about it, and found only one reference: Ed Hartouni’s helpful thread here:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=24602&msg=24602#msg24602

Equipped with Hartouni’s suggested Tricams and a gear rep’s collection of the latest micro cams, we set off. Proust wrote of how eating a pastry that he had enjoyed in his youth, the lemon flavored, scallop-shaped “Madeline,” triggered intense memories of his childhood. A similar feeling struck me when I ascended the third class slab up to the start of the climb. I remembered being surprised years ago that the crack is wider than it looks from below, three inches in places, and like most Tuolumne cracks, is riddled with knobs, inside and out.

Ed moved up to the belay and I started up. As I climbed, the three inch crack gradually tapered off to nothing after 70 feet or so. There is still a dihedral at this point but no crack in the back of it. The two bolt belay Is 20 feet off to the right from the last protection.

Nothing to do, but back up the already secure nuts and cams and give it a go. I had another Madeline moment halfway across the traverse, when I grabbed an uneven crimp, an unusual, scallop-shaped hold for the middle three fingers, where the middle finger is higher than the others. A memory materialized of the first time fingering this same hold and puzzling how to reach the knob stance a bit further right, where there are now two belay bolts. This time I got my right foot onto the knob below the bolts, all the while trying to forget the consequences of a fall from this point, but the wall steepens right there and it is a balance move to stand up. A handy retreat sling was hanging from the belay bolts, and while extending my leg, I shamelessly grabbed it to make sure there would be no blunder. Happy to get there, I yelled down to Ed, “Pretty good bolt placement, if I do say so myself.”

The outstanding pitch is the second. You traverse through some 5.8 moves past the one protection bolt to reach the black streak, which is at a gentle angle at first, but steepens gradually before it reaches a prominent ledge. Mike had led this pitch back in 1973 and as I climbed it this time, I remembered getting to the last, steeper part before the ledge, pulling through the hardest move above the last protection Mike had placed in a horizontal pocket a ways below. I had appreciated the top rope on it and I remembered looking at Graham peering down from the belay and saying, “Nice lead, Mike.”



As Hartouni pointed out, with modern gear plugged into the horizontal breaks, these days you can sew the second pitch up by TM standards.

Crags are depositories of memories. A former high school baseball player cannot relive the triple he hit in a game 40 years earlier, but for climbers, it is possible to recreate some of the exact movements, thoughts, and feelings of the past. There is magic in going back to our early climbs: one can gain entrance to a realm of memories that otherwise would be forever lost.

And you might get the feeling, for just a moment, that nothing has changed after almost 40 years. This is a fleeting self-deception, but it leaves a pleasant taste of Tuolumne summer, long ago.