[Click to View YouTube Video]California is essentially on fire right now, which is quite unfortunate cause it is not like we have a ton of water to throw on the damn things, but such is life and nature. Most widely known recently by the Little Yosemite Valley fire, and so Tuolumne was the place to be, last week. Seriously. Being that all California is on fire, and generally very smoky, the usual touron level up there was rather reduced. The climber concentration was extra high, most obviously on the classics, but it's not that hard to avoid feeling crowded, up there, regardless. Being that it was very windy, and due to the specific direction of the wind, it was such that there was hardly any smoke collecting. No rain on us any of the days topped it all off to be an incredible few days, and I got to see a few old friends as well, which made it even better.
First picture, which is out of order, is to set trip report cover photo.

Monkey Island. Chimpanzee first pitch easy peezy lemon squeezy.
Beautiful rock here, what with all the green lichen and stuff.
Badass gimps Inc. This guy has a 3D printed rib, unknown neurological issues, and still wants to drag his butt out to the base of crags to watch and chill and could hardly do so without losing consciousness. How badass is that?
Cathy coming up the first pitch.
The belay awaits, madam.
We did not get any pictures unfortunately of the second pitch, which was a most exceptional treat of significantly more pure crack climbing than I expected, some barn-doorey, liebacking, knobby tenuousness, topped with an interesting mantel climax and a belay I had to clean like it had bed bugs trapped within and was located near my beduoac.
From a few weeks ago I had some unfinished business with this particular chunk of granite, commonly known as Tenaya peak
So we arrived much earlier this time, and saw some stuff like this coming up.
And this. Me coming up, finally feeling the sun. What a beautiful day it was. The entire route spilling out below me slowly like a beautiful undulating granite ramp leading to serenity.
Cathy, as we neared the top, with basically the entire route unfolding below. How many of the four different roped parties we passed en route can you see? We made it on to the top to take some pictures.
Little Yosemite Valley, behind Clouds Rest, with Half Dome, a good angle on the upper valley, and what was left of the 80% contained fires smoke lightly lingering.
I was having a little trouble figuring out the selfie timer on my camera. Two seconds is, clearly, not enough. WERD. Ten seconds, is enough. We found this on the descent, teeth still intact. Kewl. One of the other days we climbed Black Widow. The view on top was adequate this day. We really wanted to climb South Crack, but when we arrived at the base to see a group of four euros storming the approach, we decided we were better off somewhere else with our three.
But damn, does climbing in three really give more great opportunities for pictures. Such a fun climb black widow was! But if you do it you have to climb the second pitch also. Not only was the green alien deployed on the second pitch of smeary-nobby featureless for the most part slab, but the pink tricam made an appearance! Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of all the places we climbed, or things we did, but I decided these were good enough to share. I may not hang around this place as often being that I am no longer on the mend and am rather enjoying using my young body while I can, so while I may be participating less, I can hopefully now contribute perhaps a little more.

Marcus McCoy