Northwest Buttress 5.5

My wife loves to climb: especially if the approach and descent are not horrible affairs. I consider myself lucky to have my spouse as a climbing partner. A couple of weeks ago we decided to head up to Tuolumne for a day trip. Although I have driven through the area several times, I have never actually climbed there. My wife was a good sport, allowing us to have an early start and we left Fresno at 5am, and were hiking into Tenaya Peak by 7am


The guidebook says the climb is 14 pitches, however the first maybe 1/3 of the route is really class 2/3 approach slabs. Easily done in hiking shoes.


We made it up to a big ledge, where there were 4 people waiting in line to rope up, and another 2 people ahead already climbing. We took a break, and waited for some of the route to clear. We headed up some slabby cracks. Good times




We traveled some more 3rd class and 4th class terrain before reaching another large ledge system, where the route steepens somewhat.


A couple more roped pitches of easy 5th class, had us topping out a little bit before noon.



We sat on the summit and chatted with the other climbers, who were kind enough to take our picture together.


We got lost a few times on the descent, but eventually made it down before the heat was too intense. A great day, and a fun climb.