I’ve driven through Tuolumne a few times on the way to the Valley, but I’ve never actually climbed there. Honestly, other than being incredibly beautiful, it’s never really held my interest. I’m not entirely sure why, but whenever I looked at the routes there, I never really got stoked.
But this time on the way through Jen and I decided to at least climb something to test it out. We landed on West Crack (5.9) on Daff Dome. It’s described as super popular, and it certainly lived up to that. We waited at the base for three parties to work their way up the climb. Then we did the first pitch, rapped to the ground, started to hike out, and decided that the groups were far enough up the route that we would not catch them, and started up again.
So, after four pretty damn good pitches, Jen finally got to stand on top of one of the Domes. It was fun, it was beautiful, but it made me miss Squamish. At least we’re headed down to the Valley.
