Alternative title:
Help us figure out what the hell we climbed on Lower Cathedral.

A month or so ago we gave Bridalveil East a run, but got pushed back in a hissing douse of wind-blown waterfall midway through the third pitch. Very cool start and we'll be back for that one.

Never were sure we were on route but the climbing was excellent, and somewhere up there is the Midget Chimney: lurking unseen and menacing, in my mind at least. Damn did we want to climb this pitch. Alas, not today.

Here’s what that part of this story looked like:

8 a.m: “Waterfall looks thin, viejo – let’s charge the Midget Chimney!”




Still looking dry, spirits high, no idea what the next 16 hours will entail:



There may have been subtle indicators that we were going to get wet.





But subtlety won't get you to the Midget Chimney. Let's climb up there, viejo!




Getting wet now. Shivering:


Jumping ship:


Hiding from the hissing menace behind the Return to Stone Age buttress:



Wandering back into the sun to dry off, we passed under the Return to Stone Age buttress and after +/-150 ft. saw the start to what looked like a cool line. A clean, short splitter led up to a ramp, which angled up and (climber's) left out of view. Let's try it!

The start of climb X (the chimney left was another obvious start to the same line):

Step left here to start second pitch:

More second pitch:




The third pitch involved bushwhacking through a hanging forest before being spit out onto a steep face. Climb this face via a three-tiered pyramid of scary-ass detached blocks, and presto, you’re 200 feet from the Overhang Bypass.

The two blocks that I’m using as handholds make the top tier of the Tiered Pyramid of Scary-Ass Loose Blocks, and have to be used to traverse over the exposed face onto the ledge. Both are perched on a larger loose block that you must traverse with your feet, and both wobble in your hands. Pull down, not out! Nice lead, Nutjob.



Overall, the climbing in these three mystery pitches was really good - some wide climbing up to 5.8(?), great views of El Cap and the Ribbon Falls amp, and some scary ass loose blocks as the route’s signature forget-me-nots.

After emerging into the ramp system where the 5th class climbing starts on Overhang Bypass, we gunned for the top.

After the Pig Trough:

Nice views:

Belay after the bad-bolt traverse:

Said bad bolt:


From there, it was an easy jaunt* back to the car:


*We grunted and cussed our way down the descent, negotiating the snow-choked gunsight in the dark with one headlamp. Steep snowfields had us sliding on our asses with size 3 and 4 camalots in each hand, trying not to slip to our deaths. All rap stations were under streams of melt-water. For all three raps, the first guy to rap took the headlamp while the second whimpered in the dark under a faucet of freezing hypothermia sauce as the small globe of comfort that the LED offered dimmed further from view, leaving that poor bastard to shiver in the demoralizing and wet darkness before blind-rapping himself through intermittent sharp boulders and drop-offs and bloodying up his limbs all the while fretting over knocking his teeth out with one slip into a face-mangling edge. But hell, 4 hours ain’t so bad to slide on your ass in the snow and bloody yourself up in the dark sharing a headlamp while thrusting wide cams into the snow with frozen and lacerated fingers!

All we wanted out of the day was a run at the Midget Chimney.


The line we climbed is drawn in on this pic, not sure it will be big enough to discern. Anybody know what it is? Doesn’t appear in any of the old guides that we have.


In retrospect, a great day!