Tuolumne Meadows - Zee Tree Variation
Sunday night, I rolled into Tuolumne Meadows around dinner time. After setting up my truck at the site, eating my scrumptious fish tacos from the Lee Vining gas station, I took an early morning stroll through the meadows. Tonight would be the Perseid Meteor shower, and I was looking forward to staying up late to watch natures entertainment.
As I was reading over the multitude of Yosemite pamphlets they give you for your park fee, a dubious looking vehicle pulls ever so slowly into the vacant adjacent space. I watch unobtrusively as my new neighbor cautiously starts unpacking his stuff. The back of his car is full of stuff, and I notice there is not much free real estate left on the backside for stickers. Some of them make me smile, “I Love Mountains” for instance.
Turns out my nearest neighbor is a half Nepali half Filipino PhD archaeologist named Jeff. After he gets settled in, I make my way over to introduce myself. Over tea, we discuss such things as Eastern Sierra Mountaineering, Norman Clyde, Nepal political strife, and a love of all things outdoors. He is also excited about the meteor shower, so we head over to the “night sky” tour offered by the Forrest Service.
The tour was phenomenal. Our guide talked of Greek Tragedy as relates to the night sky, I don’t remember all the stories she told, but I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finding the little & big dippers anymore 8^) Jeff & I both enjoyed the talk, and seeing the meteorites burning across the sky was neato.
The next morning, I slept until around 10am and then got up for breakfast. I enjoyed the morning sunlight, as the night before had been brisk. I noticed Jeff had slept in as well, and he was lounging in much the same way. I went over there to say hi, and next thing ya know-we’re planning out our gear.
We were looking at Zee Tree or Holdless Horrer. But, Zee Tree beckoned us due to the short (little to no) approach. Also, Jeff joked, “You could look cool for all the tourists”. Appealing to my ego, just a wee bit!
Around 11:30 we headed over to Pywiack Dome. Scoping out the route from the road, it looked straightforward, there’s a tree in an alcove about 1/3 the way up the cliff. No problemo, we thought. But, we got on the wall, and we could no longer see the tree. The wall is quite slabby, and the 4th class turns quickly at times into low 5th, and it’s a little daunting if you’re not used to slab (like me!). Jeff was a pro, he was scurring around like a marmot trying to find food. We kept thinking we saw bolts, but in the midday sun, it was just the granite glittering.
Finally, after searching for about 30 minutes, we just decided to go for it. Jeff saw an orange colored alcove so he climbed solo up to that spot. There were some mangy bolts in the alcove, so he put himself in directly, and then threw the rope down for me. What a gentleman 8^) Once I joined him at the belay, it was all she wrote.
We climbed the next two pitches with no problem. I noticed some bolts 30 feet to our left, which turned out to be the anchors for the 3rd pitch. We had skipped the first TWO pitches of the route. Including ZEE TREE pitch. FUNNY.
The best pitch though, was the last one, which goes up a 5.7 crack (#3/#4 camalot). It was 20 feet of fun, and then the route tapers off to the top. We rapped off the Eastern side of the dome, after eating lunch. It was my first time on top of Pywiack, so it was neat for me to see Lake Tenaya and Stately Pleasure from a different angle.