Trip reports

The triple crown is the act of climbing Tenaya Peak, Matthess Crest and Cathedral peak in a single push. Difficulty peaks at 5.6/5.7. Better to do most of it, if not all in solo fashion.

I have been wanting to get on each of these three easy peaks the past year. Life made it complicated for me to go out and climb but summer of 2023, I’ll be damned if I couldn’t get out and climb! Instead of doing all three peaks separately, the idea was to do all three in one push.

I knew Nick had wanted to do these peaks also and I really enjoy climbing/hiking with him, so we did it together. He is a busy postdoc at Stanford now, so I figured out all the logistics for this trip. Took a day off and left for Tuolumne on Friday, got to Tioga pass mid-afternoon, and went in search of a campsite. There are quite a lot of different campsites between the Lee Vining Mobil gas station at Tioga pass and the Tuolumne entrance, but they are all first come, first serve. Chances are that if you arrive on a Friday afternoon, it might be challenging to find something. I found a spot, or rather thought I did, at the Tioga Lake Campground (the best one in my opinion). It’s located on the west bank of Tioga lank, is surrounded by easily accessible meadows and surrounded by jagged peaks. It’s heavenly and the campground is very well maintained. I was feeling a little dizzy and out of breath. Probably just the altitude. This always reminds me how much of a coastal city boy I am. As soon as I hit 8000 feet, I start feeling it. Super ‘syched to be there, I love Tuolumne meadows, always reminds me why I love California. I mentioned I thought I found a campsite because someone was already there, but they were gone climbing, parking spots being empty and no gear anywhere, I thought it was available. I paid like a law-abiding citizen and was establishing camp when the Ranger came up to me and notified me that someone was occupying this campsite. He was nice and saw I didn’t mean to “steal” the campsite and we figured out a way to squeeze Nick and I’s car on the parking spots to car camp.

I prepared camp and did everything to reduce the number of things to do the next morning at 4am. Nick was caught up with Bay Area traffic and work, so he got in at night, around 9pm. When he arrived, we discussed logistics, gear etc. Although this kind of climbing is solo-able, we went with the option of solo + simulclimbing. This would significantly slow us down compared to full solo but safety first.

The next day, we started at dawn, before sunrise. We drove to Cathedral Lakes trailhead, had breakfast ;  Nick ate a horse’s amount of plain oatmeal. Not my style but will do, I guess? We headed out for our journey at 5:15am. We hiked south towards Matthess Crest. I wanted to knock that one out early because it’s long and don’t want to get stuck in a storm on it, especially this weekend where that hurricane was lurking near us. It was 5mi to get to the south end of Matthess Crest, which took us 2:50 hours. Already I could tell it was going to be long if we were to do all three in a row.
The climb started with a blooper: A party had just started and the first tower is basically a choose your own adventure kind of deal. I heard of a 5.8 variation on the left of the 5.6 route so jetted up this series of flared sketchy cracks, setting seldom pro, thinking it was “only” 5.8. At some point I realized it was sketchy, so I started putting more gear in and by the time I look down, 30 meters are between Nick and I and I am at what I thought was an abandoned anchor but was probably a bail station. I clipped in and attempted to find a way up to join with the beginning of the crest. It was not 5.8 anymore but a run out, chossy 5.9/5.10. It was windy and cold. After trying several different options and feeling like a cat stuck in a tree, I decided to retreat back to ground 0 and we went for the regular option. This stalled us probably 30 minutes. Following this mishap, we started to head up the right way at around 9:45am and simulclimbed the first tower until we reached the crest. From there, pure scrambling bliss, with a few very exposed but easy sections. We roped up for one short pitch after this and finished off the ridge at around 12:20pm.

We then headed for Cathedral peak, which is a straight walk 2mi away on fairly downhill granite slabs, not the worst. We started the climb at 2pm. This was also a very generous 5.7 and felt soloable. We actually got passed by a solo-train on the way to the top. The climb was really agreeable despite the wind picking up and the stormy clouds coming in. The full Triple Crown is compromised…. The top of Cathedral Peak was very crowded, as well as the way down. This peak is very popular. We topped out around 5pm and headed back down to the car. The end of the walk back was done under light rain that morphed into heavy rain and storm as soon as we hit the the car, around 7pm! We helped two gals that left their car at Tenaya lake (how is that possible). They invited us to have a bear at the trailhead and some snacks. A real little improvised “apero”.

We spent the evening preparing dinner and getting some rest before leaving the next day. Nick got a bonus run in in Tuolumne and caught a glimpse of a bear in the meadow! Got welcomed back to LA by the hurricane Hillary.

This is a long shot, my attempt to recount my trip up Mount Whitney (through the East-Face, 5.7 y.m.d.s) in June 2021 before my friend Matt disappeared in the confines of Luxembourg.

Quick one sentence introduction about it: Mt Tumanguya (its original Pauite name, which means very old man, according to Google), is the highest peak in continental US, culminating at 14,505ft (~ 4000m for the euros reading), right behind Mt Denali (previously Mt McKinley), in Alaska, culminating at an impressive 20,308ft elevation.

It is now July 2025, I haven’t climbed since November 2024, where I hurt my back badly in Yosemite. I am still nursing it after my surgery in January and can only do a tiny fraction of what I was able to do before. I miss it very bad; maybe this detailed account will act as a reenactment of the climb and exorcize a little bit the frustration that mounts up from being kept away from running around in the High Sierras for so long.

We set out to Lone Pine, CA on Wednesday June 16th 2021 with Matt from Pasadena, in my beloved Dodge Grand Caravan, which, low and behold would break down a few months later and have to be totaled. She served me well with countless cozy nights in the freezing winters of the Sierra! I owe her my life!

 We arrived early evening of that same day at Whitney Portal, west of Lone Pine, a popular destination for campers, hikers and climbers willing to scale Mt Whitney in a bipedal or quadrupedal way. I had snagged a campground, so relative comfort to be expected (no traffic and a table) and no need to sleep in the overflow parking area. I distinctively remember having neighbors who had no idea how to make a fire, they however were really good at generating smoke that was blowing towards us all evening, which resulted in me having a stabbing headache in the middle of the night, probably due in part to the non-trivial altitude Whitney Portal is at for LA peeps (~ 8000ft). Aside from the smokers, this was a perfect Sierra night, cold, clear night sky and the shadow of Whitney looming afar.

Waking up in the morning, we were greeted with the incredible landscape that is Whitney Portal, a literal corridor leading straight to Mt Whitney [PIC]. You are surrounded by tall granite walls, which have all received rubber kisses from climbers, although I never had the chance to sample that rock. Straight west, two popular trails, the Mt Whitney trail that hikers take up Mt Whitney and the lower boy scout lake trail, much shorter, ~ 4mi, but with an insane elevation gain of ~ 4000ft. Heading south is another trail, Meysan trail lake, that gives you access to Lone Pine Peak, which I had climbed with Nick the year prior (easy, long ridge which can be 80% soloed). We therefore set off on lower boy scout trail, my pack was probably way too heavy, because of my Rousseau book, “Les Confessions” [PIC], which I had set off to read a few months before, more as a challenge. And challenging it was. I guess its popularity in the 1800s came from the novelty of a very public figure writing about very private, scandalous affairs. We are numb to that now, and Rousseau’s style of writing is stylish, but quite heavy to read in my humble opinion.

Anyways, we set off on the trail, which starts nicely on the very well-maintained Mt Whitney trail and then [PIC], quickly digresses into bushwhack-y, climber trails (the lower boy scout trail, OUR trail). It kicked my ass. I was a Los Angeles 0ft elevation boy, not an 8000ft one!! A fun part of the trail is at its beginning, where you need to gain a little bit elevation to get on this granite plateau. You must scramble up these granite slabs, which can be a little slippery and treacherous [PIC], especially at night. It took us 4 hours to reach upper boy scout lake. From Whitney Portal to upper boy scout lake, you see a rapid change in the vegetation, from tall pine trees to short shrubs, to talus, to the lunar high Sierra landscapes with big white granite boulders and nothing else biological in sight, except marmots trying to eat your food [PIC]. We took an hour-long lunch break at upper boy scout lake because we were I was absolutely destroyed. Lunch consisted of peanut butter burritos basically, it’s very calory dense, efficient, and packs very well, ask any through-hiker, but it’s not very good [PIC]. Hiking up the remaining 1.7mi (~1,000ft elevation gain) was out of the question and I was trying to convince Matt to just set up camp there, in between the boulders and just call it a day. He felt confident we should make it to Iceberg lake though, which he was right about! Luckily for me however, it started raining for about an hour, which gave me some down time to get back on my feet. We were at my breaking-in altitude level, where I usually start to feel different, around 10,000ft. This is where doubt set in, and where you need to keep focused. You start thinking “woaw I’m already tired now, what is it going to be when CLIMBING” right? Well first, the East Face of Whitney is not that hard, nor long, and also, you don’t climb with a 40-pound hiking bag on your back. The last 1.7mi up to Iceberg lake felt like crossing a desert, the landscape is extremely barren and quiet and rocky and SLOW! One foot after another and you talk about nonsense with your friend trying to make it go faster. It’s also those moments when you sink in these flow states where you just do and are too tired to think. It’s a nice feeling, hard to get anywhere else than when doing hard exercise for me.

We finally arrived at Iceberg lake around 5pm. After the final climb up to get to the Iceberg plateau, which separates the approach to Keeler Needle (still on my to-do list, will I have the chance to do it?) from Mt Whitney. Iceberg lake is an incredible place, at the foot of Mt Whitney, towering ominously over us [PIC]. It’s also a well trafficked stop because it is the access point to the east side of Mt Whitney, meaning a lot of campsites are prebuilt with cool rock walls to shelter from the high winds. We were, I believe, the only ones there and could pick the best spot, which we did [PIC]! We set up camp, cooked backpacking meals that felt good [Ca fait du bien par ou ca passe maître kebabier!] and set out to an early bed. The night was windy, rainy and stormy, the best kind at 12,000. You can hear the gods! Not fun to be a god… We woke up at 5am on the following Thursday, it was still wet and stormy looking. At that precise time, it didn’t seem like a good idea to dangle off Whitney for 4 hours, but Sierra weather is very dynamic and full of surprises. We therefore had time to wait for the perfect weather window. Now, this is where things almost went south for our trip. As we were approaching the day prior, a fire got very close to Whitney Portal, so much so that it led to an evacuation order. Matt and I were notified on our phones from the Inyo County Scheriff department [PIC]. At the edge of the Iceberg plateau we had reception and spent long minutes there, deciding whether or not we go with the ascension. I first called the Scheriff. The operator told me to come down ASAP! Okay…. That was extremely disappointing news. We edged ourselves to get over here and now just must come down? What a total buzz kill.

As I’m thinking with Matt whether we disobey or not it comes to my mind that if there is indeed a fire at Whitney Portal and my car is gone in smithereens, why would I want to run down there. Who cares, right? We might as well stay closer to the gods where there is nothing to burn and IF we were to die, the way up would be 4000ft shorter. So, I didn’t see ANY benefit in going down (I’m good at convincing myself of something). I therefore called back the Sheriff Department, ready to tell them we were climbing. This operator, a different one, had a totally different attitude and basically adopted the same reasoning as us. They actually asked us to stay up there as long as we could. I therefore asked them if we could climb Whitney and I remember them telling me “hell yeah you can”. There it was, the official green light from the Inyo Sheriff.

At 9am, the skies are clear, a few thin silky clouds hanging on the tip of the Whitney finger. We start our approach. I am very bad at remembering the details of a climb. I completely zone-in, do what I got to do, in some sort of autopilot way. I just remember brief moments of bliss and joy at specific spots where the exposure is enthralling or my partner and I farting around at the belay ledges. I will remember a comfortable belay ledge though, because they are little and few. This always makes me wonder how people who write topos remember all the details. Is it repetition? They did it so much that they can remember acute details of the climb. They are akin to full consciousness zen monks, while for me it’s almost a sensory overload I can only unpack days to weeks later. As a matter of fact, please don’t rely on this page for jam by jam instructions for the East Face of Whitney. Rather, check it out on Mountain Project (https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105792077/east-face)

The approach to the climb itself gets you surprisingly high up on the wall. The climb is only 6-7 pitches to the top, which is short. I remember Matt climbing the first, vertical-most pitch which was some kind of left-facing dihedral that ended by a slight roof section. We swapped leads, it was cruisy 5.7, a perfect pace, like vertical hiking. Absolutely blissful, insane exposure, with Iceberg lake in the backdrop and the corridor leading to Whitney Portal and the Owens valley in the distance. The topology and the views in the Eastern Sierras are one of a kind [PIC]. The elevation differences between lowest to highest point are probably around 10,000ft and you can actually see it, which is not common where I come from, south west of France. We got to the summit hut at 1:20pm, making it a 4 hour ascension. That’s good speed. Matt was always a good climbing partner for me because we had very similar climbing skills and climbed at a somewhat similar pace, which made the rhythm of multipitching very nice. This also goes with Cy, with whom I climbed Mt Russel a month later, which I will try to also write about soon.

As usual, early afternoons in the high sierras greet you with the occasional afternoon thunder/hailstorm, and if not, it starts getting very cloudy and menacing, so you don’t what to be setting shop up there. A few pictures[PIC], a good leak, and off we went. The way down essentially follows the Mountaineers route, another popular route up Whitney. It’s more of a technical scramble. It regularly claims lives, especially in the early spring. Not because of its difficulty but more so because of its apparent accessibility (just my opinion). Lots of unprepared people try it, when it still has frost and snow and unstable rock. It’s in the shade most of the day so the snow persists, and the rock underneath is unstable. Some people will think of it as a “hike” when it really is a death sled more akin to alpinism to be very careful on. It took us ~1 hour to carefully scale down the mountaineer’s route gully, and we were back at camp at 2:30pm, a rather quick trip up and down (5 hours total).

The way back down to the car was quite uneventful and won’t dwell on it too much. I do remember it being much easier than up and filled with the persistent joy you feel after you’ve successfully climbed something you’ve ideated for a while. Also for having persisted with going up and not going back down after the first talk with the Sheriff. This is an important lesson: n = 1 is not enough sampling. Just like in science, you need good statistical sampling. Although n = 2 is not enough neither, it’s still twice a much as n = 1. I wasn’t going to call the Sheriff ten times to have a statistically significant answer and honestly, second try gave me the answer we needed, haha!