Clyde Minaret: Southeast Face

Here's What Happened:

The hike in on July 3 to Minaret Lake took 4 hours. We woke up by cell phone alarm at 6am on July 4. All times are estimates given that we had no watch after this wake up alarm. We started the approach at 7:30am. We got to base of the Direct Variation (DV) at 10am. We started to climb at 10:30am. We got to within 250 feet of the summit at 8:30pm. That's 10 hours. Many of the pitches were very, very long with sustained climbing. We bivied for the first time in our lives (in the context of a long and illustrious mountain career for my partner Bruce (especially skiing, including Denali), and a short climbing history for me).

You can think of the route as four parts:

Part 1: 3 pitches to get to Wide Crack where DV meets with original route (2 pitches of DV, 1 pitch traversing left to Wide Crack, meeting up with original route).

Part 2: 3 pitches following the easiest line up and trending to the right to almost the top of an indistinct tower, where you see the left-facing dihedral to your right.

Part 3: 3-4 pitches with short down climb (10 feet) then traverse right (12+ feet), then up and up and up a dihedral (450 feet) with an upper part that is a HUGE dihedral to get to the Notch.

Part 4: 3-4 pitches of easy arete and face climbing/traversing on ledges and going up ridge to get to the summit.

There was no move above a 5.9+, but pitch #2 of the DV had a hard-ish move, as well as pitches #4 & #5. Nevertheless, the DV was easier than expected, and definitely worth it! (For me, by Yosemite standards, these hard-ish moves were not harder than anything on Selaginella, East Buttress of Middle Cathedral Rock, or Nutcracker, which are all 5.9's, I think, and I had done very recently.)

The traverse leftward to meet up with the original route at the top of pitch #2 of the DV was easy. Keep traversing left until you get to the base of an obvious perfectly straight up wide crack. To start the wide crack pitch, climb 4-5 feet to the left of this wide crack rather until you're above and through with this 15 ft.-section of off-width crack, rather than in the crack itself.

Three pitches later (having gone mostly up and slightly right, mostly up and slightly right, along the easiest line, never-ending), you get to the top of pitch 6, which is very near the top of a tower where see a fixed nut, which you can use or not. You belay slightly past and below this fixed nut for the so-called 'very exposed' traverse rightward pitch into the start of the left-facing dihedral. This 'very exposed' traverse was really 'hardly exposed at all.' It was very easy and short (10 feet down, then 12 feet right). Note that this tower was really kind of a flat broad indistinguishable tower once you're on it. This short 'exposed traverse' and moving upward 80 feet in the dihedral comprised our pitch #7, the first pitch in the dihedral.

The pitch in the HUGE dihedral (#9) was about 180 ft. It was astonishingly beautiful with easy hand and some finger jams. (It was the best pitch I've ever done anywhere. I'd gasped so loudly and spontaneously when I'd turned a blocky corner to see it that Bruce asked, 'What's wrong!' Yes, it's that beautiful!)

Again, we were surprised that the climb took so long. We were never off-route, but several spots took time to figure out and feel sure of before climbing on. (Can someone also please bring back my 3-lobed yellow Metolius cam that I spent too much time not getting out, and a red Helium carabiner that fell to the snow below?)

So, all this said, we decided to bivy and come down via Amphitheatre Lake the next morning. I heard someone say to Bruce, "I'm too skinny to bivy up here, let's keep going." He replied, 'No, it's too dangerous to go down at night." We awoke to gorgeous views from our high-perched aerie bivy. Needless to say, sleep was only intermittent. It was like being a prisoner of war with wild and ongoing dreaming about visiting a sleeping bag store, then having my body torched by hundreds of hot hair dryers all at once, and more.

Traversing the ridge northward from the summit, you run into a huge tall block, which blocks your way down the ridge. You go left (just 15-20 ft.) around this big block to see the descent gully, and rap sling-anchor in the middle of the gully, for the first time. Stop, don't walk or try to descend anything or anywhere. Look 5 feet right above your head for the first of two rap sling-anchors.

Be careful that a 60 meter rope raps you down to five feet above the second rap sling-anchor in the gully. Also be careful to aim for this rap sling-station in the gully, which is not straight below you, but 20-ft. to the right when looking down the gully. After the second rap, the easy hike down 3rd class rock, then easy snow, is evident to get you to the north end of Amphitheatre Lake.

The pictures will tell you the rest of the story. We are recreational climbers who climb at a steady pace (neither fast nor slow) and this was our first time having to bivy on a backcountry climb. (This was our 8th high sierra climb together in 4 years.) Bruce decided, after we got back to the (San Francisco) Bay Area, that, next time, "I guess we don't have to wait for the snow to melt before we start (the approach in the morning). We can just walk on ice." We had taken only an ice axe for each and no crampons. (We'd never taken either before on past routes, but the ice axes were definitely useful for this route. With our late morning soft-snow starts, we could have made it without too. To ascend and descend in the same day, with an early morning icy start, an ice axe would have been indispensible. We definitely could have used an axe or crampons for our late morning Mt. Goode approach last summer too.) However, our not-so-early soft-snow approach, including the not very steep traverse to the DV start, were very easy!

Clyde Minaret was my 14th high sierra, backcountry type of trad. climb. It was the most beautiful and most unregrettable yet!

We had taken a shuttle from Mammoth Ski Resort to Devil's Postpile, as instructed at the Vistor's Center in Mammoth where we picked up our permit. What a pain! Then, we saw that there was only a single car parked in the 'Overnight Lot' within a mile from the Devil's Postpile ranger station--our trailhead. What a riot! We had hiked back out from Minaret Lake in under 3 hours, but it was 9:30pm by then, and we'd missed the last (7pm) shuttle back to Mammoth Resort. Luckily, a very nice and understanding ranger lodged there gave us a ride out back to Mammoth Resort (10+ miles), but only after he called a taxi, which would be unavailable to get us for 2-3 hrs., and would have cost "$50 + tip." This ranger said he'd work on fixing the problem of his colleagues' incorrectly not letting backpackers drive themselves into the Devil's Postpile area--since the parking lot is made for us!

Please view the pictures sequentially, starting from ClydeMin0, then ClydeMin1, etc., so they make sense. (See #5 as two parts -- #5a then #5b.)

This was my first trip report, and maybe my last given how long it took to upload pictures. Bye, thanks for reading!

Images

View Clyde Minaret: Southeast Face Image Gallery - 18 Images