Disclaimer: This climb involves rock climbing, which is inherently dangerous. This blog post does not include formal instruction of any kind. Please make sure you have the appropriate skills and knowledge before attempting this outing.
I was looking to do an alpine multi-pitch route in the Yosemite area. The West Ridge of Mount Conness caught our eye as a longer alpine objective with a moderate rating of 5.6. Being someone who also really enjoys backpacking, we decided to make it a backpacking trip as well by approaching from the Young Lakes side. A few days before we wanted to do the climb, I was able to get some Young Lakes backpacking permits.
We picked up our permits on a Sunday morning and parked at the Dog Lake Trailhead. Our plan was to camp near Roosevelt Lake so that we would be close to the bottom of the climb the following morning. We followed the trail to the lowest Young Lake and stopped for a snack and to filter some water. We then cut off trail and continued on towards Roosevelt Lake. Once we cut off-trail, the view of Mount Conness really opened up in front of us and we were excited to climb it the following day. When we arrived at Roosevelt Lake, we found that we had the lake all to ourselves and set up camp. Within 30 minutes of setting up camp, we had a marmot trying to open our bear canister while I was siting just 15 feet away from it. After scaring it off, we enjoyed the rest of the night and headed to be early.
Red = ascent. Yellow = descent.
The next morning we woke up a little before sunrise to temperatures that were in the 30s and started hoping the air would heat up quickly. We hiked over to the base of the route (37.96578, -119.32762) and knew the route was not going to see sun for a few hours. We put on our gear and started heading up the route, with Mike in the lead.
The route we took up the bottom pitches felt considerably harder than 5.6 (even “Yosemite 5.6”). In hindsight, we think staying farther climber’s left would have had more moderate terrain, but it’s hard to tell without having actually climbed the terrain. Regardless, the slope angle eventually eased a bit, and we found ourselves in terrain that was a bit easier. We soon made it to the the ridge where we found ourselves looking straight down the south face of the mountain. It was a lot of exposure!
We ended up pitching out the whole climb. I found the climbing on the route we took to be mostly in the low to mid 5th class range and did not personally feel comfortable simul-climbing the route, which had been our original expectation. This led to the day taking much longer than anticipated, but we kept it moving and found ourselves at the top of Mount Conness in the late afternoon.
After a short celebration, we headed down the 3rd class East Ridge and then took a notch ( 37.96330, -119.31939) that led us down some loose and shabby 3rd class terrain that put us at the bottom of the Southwest Face. From there, it was easy walking back to our tent. We ate dinner when we got back to camp and shortly thereafter headed to bed.
The next morning we woke up, broke down camp, and started hiking back to Lower Young Lake. We then hopped back on trail and decided to take the trail that would bring us back to the Glen Aulin Trailhead and check out a different stretch of trail. The trail had very few people on it until we hit the intersection with the PCT, at which point we probably saw 35 people in the span of 15 minutes. Once at the Glen Aulin Trailhead, we hiked along the road a little bit until we were able to pick up the trail that ran parallel to the road and took us back to Dog Lake Trailhead.
Overall, I had a blast on this 3 day trip, with the highlight obviously being Mount Conness. The climbing was more difficult than anticipated, and the exposure was bigger than expected, but it all made for an awesome day out in the mountains.
Day 1 stats: 8.9 miles, 2860 ft of elevation gain
Day 2 stats: 3.7 mies, 2630 ft of elevation gain
Day 3 stats: 9.9 miles, 580 ft of elevation gain
Total stats: 22.5 miles, 6070 ft of elevation gain
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