First ascent 1922 by Ansel Adams and Francis Holman. First winter ascent April 5, 1995, by Paul Richins and Robin Fuller. Class 1 from Post Peak Pass.
-RJ Secor, The High Sierra, Peaks, Passes and Trails p.414, 3rd ed.
Ok, never mind that winter is usually over before April. This rating has come down to RJ from Roper and Voge before him, and I highly suspect none of them has been to this obscure peak just outside the southern boundary of Yosemite. In fact the class 1 rating may have come from Ansel Adams himself to Hervey Voge when the Sierra Club first gathered their collective data for a climbing guide back in the 1930s.
Here's what the peak looks like from Post Peak Pass where the route is described by Voge as 'obvious':
While the route is indeed obvious, it seems far from class 1. Here Matthew's on the easier portion of the route lower down:
Nearer the summit it becomes quite blocky and class 3. Ok, the left side of the ridge is class 2 and I'm being picky, but it gets better. My first visit to this peak was two years ago and at night which I thought would be easy enough given a class 1 rating. But I found a summit block that I didn't expect:
Thinking maybe I missed something in the darkness and it really isn't so bad in daylight, Matthew and I came back two years later, but with a rope just in case. We used it:
My first class 1 summit for which I needed a rope:
I have great respect for RJ, btw, and making fun of his book is just a way some of us have of expressing this. As RJ himself says regarding those that "vilify me in the alpine media":
'It is rewarding to know that my work has brought so much happiness to the world.'
As a bonus exercise, see how many unsafe climbing practices you can identify in the above pictures. I think there are more than a dozen.
