Trad Climbing in Yosemite - Summer 2025

Yosemite is the capital of climbing. It features massive granite slabs, domes, walls, and mountains. Through some mutual friends, I found myself a climbing partner and out to Yosemite’s highlands, Tuolumne for a weekend of climbing this summer.

The long drive from San Francisco meant we arrived near midnight, quickly set up tents, and got a view of the night sky before heading to bed. The sun rose, we ate some grub, and drove off to the mountains.

The first (of two) climbs we did was Cathedral Peak, a classic known for it’s moderate climbing with beautiful views. An hour long hike in turned out to be a harder approach than expected given the high altitude. Starting at ~2500 meters, the hike leaves you at the base of Cathedral Peak at ~3000 meters, with the peak sitting around 3300 meters.

A few other parties were waiting and a line gave us a little rest before we started climbing. It started quite easy with many large slabs allowing for a variety of technique and exploration. We met some friends along the climb and quickly made it into a groove. After a few pitches on the face, we reached a shaded portion that entered into a chimney. This was my first chimney, and having to climb it with a backpack made for a quite exhausting and tricky climb, albeit a favourite pitch that left a lasting impression.

I led the following pitch, feeling exhilarated and confident. It was quite easy climbing, more of an adventure than a challenge. It reminded me of when I first started climbing outdoors. The jump from indoors to outdoors opened a layer of adventure and fun from the prescribed colour-coded indoor routes. There’s no longer a clear path, an obvious next hold, but that’s the fun, you make it up as you go. The same feeling came on my first trad lead where there were no bolts to follow, not even an anchor to tell me when I’ve arrived. It was up to me to path find and establish my own end point.

After reaching the top, we took a break for food and water, enjoyed the view and started the tedious decent. I found this to be the most mentally taxing as we’d already been out for a while and now had to be on high alert as we down climbed/scrambled with packs on. A couple hours of scrambling followed by hiking got us back to the car 9 hours after having set out.

While it was quite adventurous, I realise this isn’t always the case. Our second day we climbed Holdless Horror, another moderate trad climb, though this time up the flat Dozier Dome. With a much welcomed short approach, we again arrived to find a few other on the climb and some people behind us forming a line.

A prominent crack going from the ground all the way to the top marked the route. It was quite a blast doing a pure crack climb, following a single crack system, again with beautiful views of Tuolumne. I was grateful for my practice climbing crack indoors (and once outdoors). A tricky pitch had my arms feeling a tad pumped and without the training it likely would have been quite a struggle. My crack climbing skills are definitely unseasoned, but having built up strength balanced out the gap. After hanging out on top and snacking with a view of the highlands, we began a much more tame decent.

Compared to the first day, this was an easier and shorter climb (attributed partly to the short approach and decent). A couple technical moves topped the difficulty of Cathedral, but on the whole I found it easier. Climbing a pure crack climb was also less adventurous because the route is more or less already laid out, however that didn’t make it any less fun! I can also imagine having a system of crossing cracks getting the best of both worlds…

After the climb, we hung out at Tanaya Lake. Tommy Caldwell, the Dawn Wall legend himself happened to be there too, but looked busy and we were tired (so no selfie). We then packed up and began the long drive home.