JOURNAL NOTES
CATHEDRAL RANGE LOOP SKI
April 1-4, 2004
by Rich Henke

When Harlan Suits invited me to join a 4-day ski tour in the Cathedral Range in Yosemite, I jumped at the chance. This would be an opportunity to explore the area south of Cathedral Peak where I had never been before. The loop would start and end at an elevation of 4000 feet in Yosemite Valley. We would climb out via the Snow Creek Trail, ski a clockwise loop through Tuolumne Meadows, and return via Nevada and Vernal Falls. Other participants in our group were Karen Davis, John Langbein, and Steve Cochran. Most of the route was on the 15 min Tuolumne Meadows topo map, but 3 others are required to see the entire loop.

DAY 1 - Yosemite Valley (4000 ft) to below Olmstead Point (8100 ft)
After leaving LA in rush hour traffic and sleeping just outside El Porto, I met the group at the Curry Village parking lot. After packing and dividing up community gear, we left around 10 am. It was a long hike from the valley floor up the switchbacks of the Snow Creek Trail, which began near Mirror Lake at the NE part of the Valley. We didn't reach snow until about 6700 feet. The trail was marked with old license plates attached to the trees. At a junction, the trail to the left went directly to the Tioga Pass Road. Unfortunately, we took the shortcut to the right and ended up descending a steep hillside with difficult breakable crust into a valley still below the road. It was getting dark so we opted to camp at a protected spot in the trees next to a stream. The wind had blown hard all day and continued all night. Our total gain today had exceeded 4500 feet.

DAY 2 - Below Olmstead Point (8100 ft) to Elizabeth Lake (9500 ft)
It was still windy in the morning. We started at 8 am and quickly reached Olmstead Point. A long downhill run got us to Tenaya Lake. We left the Tioga road here and skied up the valley just south of Pywiack Dome, which led to the Cathedral Lakes. We crossed a pass south of Cathedral Peak, descended to Budd Lake, and then climbed a very steep pass just south of Unicorn Peak. Our anticipation of great skiing down to Elizabeth Lake was crushed. Instead, we had to descend very difficult breakable crust to reach a camp on the shore of the lake where we spent our 2nd night, after a 10-hour day.

DAY 3 - Elizabeth Lake (9500 ft) to below Sunrise Lakes (8800 ft)
Our net loss for the day was 700 feet but that doesn't begin to tell the story. We left camp at 8 am and skied to our high point of the trip, a pass at 10,800 feet just south of Johnson Peak. The view to the East encompassed the Sierra Crest including Mt. Gibbs. We contoured down and around making a U-turn back to the west to cross another pass just north of Rafferty Peak. In front of us was a great panorama including Mathes Crest. For the rest of the day we skied west over a very convoluted route with lots of ups and downs. Steve used his pattern skis to an advantage while the rest of us were putting on and taking off skins constantly. The downhill skiing was enjoyable and only one of the passes (the one just south of Mathes Crest) was difficult. We had to carry our skis up the last 150 feet. It was almost 6 pm by the time we reached our camp along a stream about 2 miles southwest of Sunrise Lakes.

DAY 4 - Below Sunrise Lakes (8800 feet) to Yosemite Valley (4000 ft)
We had a touch of freezing rain during the night, just enough to cover the tents with ice. We skied gradually up to the ridge (about 9000 ft), which separated the Tenaya Creek drainage from the Merced River drainage. The view before us included the Clark Range and the deep Merced River Valley. We were all set for some good downhill. But the southwest-facing slope was almost completely bare below us. Luckily we were able to traverse left into a canyon and managed to ski in the trees and in shaded areas for several hours down to about 7500 feet. But then it was walking along the trail that led back down to Nevada Falls, Vernal Falls and the Valley. We stopped to enjoy the view above Nevada Falls and continued down, reaching the valley around 5.30 pm. It was a 12-mile day, 8 of them spent carrying our skis.

SUMMARY
This was a very strenuous trip. We covered about 45 miles and the gain was close to 10,000 feet. Harlan, Steve, and I shared my Sierra Designs Stretch Dome and used a hanging Camping Gaz stove to cook. Karen and John used an Integral Designs I-tent and cooked with a Whisperlite. Harlan and Steve had plastic boots, which did not fare as well as leather for a trip with so many miles. The avalanche danger was zero. We did not really have good corn snow conditions, but we were able to ski almost all of the downhill sections. The only really difficult area was from Unicorn Pass down to Elizabeth Lake. Harlan and John used 7.5 min topos plus a GPS to navigate the maze of canyons and ridges we passed through on day 3. This area receives very little visitation on skis!