We had quite the adventure on our last day in Tuolumne this year. After cleaning up the site and making amends, I made my way to Cathedral Peak with Sam, Oli, and Kai. Breakfast, clean up, etc... all took a LONG time, so we didn't hit the trail until 11am or so. I knew we were in for a long day ahead.
The morning fire made for some fun pics...
The kiddos love Katie Bell's van
Nikko wishing Oli, "good luck!"
The boys seeing Cathedral up close for the first time!
These two are great hikers!
The boys waiting for me to get to the top of the first pitch. I think they are still very excited here... Photo: Sam
Some cruxy moves for Kai. There are a lot of reachy 5.5 moves that become quite hard quickly for shorter beings.
Seeing the boys at the top always brought a smile to my face.
Ugh oh... starting to see rain everywhere.
And then the thunder started. And Kai got a bit scared. But he kept focused and we kept going.
Hi Sam! After this experience of belaying 3 people at the same time, I got myself a belay plate. So I'll be ready next time!
The parties ahead of us were quite slow... so I actually didn't get to do the chimney, but the boys did. I think they had fun.
After getting some hail, rain, and lightening... we made it to the top. I was in my T-shirt (I put my jacket on Kai), so I was starting to get cold here... Eichorn would have to wait until next time.
"The best climber is the one having the most fun" - Alex Lowe.
Kai wasn't the best climber at this moment. I don't know if you can tell but he was pretty close to losing it, but he took one deep breath and finished the climb. This last move isn't the most difficult, but definitely the most exposed of the whole climb. Way to suck it up and finish! I was beaming as a proud papa about this point.
Sam was pretty stoked to be done as well.
Summit shot!
Sam downclimbing... I lowered the boys off the other side.
Eichorn... that would've been a rad pic with me on top of there...
After an hour of hiking down to the bottom... Kai was literally losing his s***
So I had to carry him on my shoulders for the rest of the way. Mind you... he had pooped his pants a bit on pitch 4... this is something only a father would do.
"I run because it always takes me where I want to go." - Dean Karnazas
Tuolumne. One of my favorite places in the universe.
We had two groups serendipitously coming together this weekend... as my trail running buddies had planned a Tuolumne to Mammoth trail run, and Hoeft got a group site (again). So we had quite the crew to party up yonder in the high country. Danielle threw out her back, so Metreses who were headed to go backpacking bailed on that plan and joined us.
Start out with a group pic of us on top of Lembert Dome! Camille! Over here! On day 3... aka. Sun.
I drove up Fri with Nikko as I was going to take the day off anyway and wanted to maximize my time in paradise
We drove straight to Tenaya Lake for a nice dip. We stopped at Rainbow Falls for lunch too! Double dip day!
Then we decided to climb Pothole dome... so Nikko could do the floss at the top.
Cathedral Peak! We'll be seeing you soon...
Nikko pondering life...
The rangers put on quite the show on Fri. Banjos, guitars, good singing and a fire... we only stopped for 5 min on our way to go say hi to Hope. The others slowly rolled in... and at 10 pm, Sam, Seth, Alex Hudgins and I drove down to Mammoth for our big adventure run the next day.
We were quite slow in the morning...
after coffee, quick brekky, and a poo stop, we were on our way
We were team "NoBo" as we were headed north to Tuolumne. We decided collectively to go through the Minarets in the beginning to add to the adventure. I think that side loop was our highlight.
Some runnable trails... some not. We were going a lot slower than expected...
Nice shot of Seth floating on the JMT
There were plenty of folks on the trail and a nice lady took a pic of us...
my lunch... from yesterday. I was stoked to have this. mmm....
Seth had tummy trouble (shocker! I know...) so there was plenty of waiting for him at water stops. And there were lots of water stops.
Banner and Ritter
Seeing the SoBo crew was always uplifiting and gave both crews an energy boost for the next 10 min. Aaron made a side tour to go tag a peak
Looking down the perfectly glacier polished Lyell Canyon.
Big ole' cow bone...
Lyell canyon... takes forever.
Sam was nice enough to wait for Seth... so Alex and I took off back to camp. Sam and Seth were only like an hour back, so it wasn't too bad. All in all, a great day running in the mountains...
Here's a fun vid of "stringbean" breaking the FKT on a trail in Ireland... I also like his quote: "A love of distance and pain is what really separates an ultrarunner from a distance runner." - although I'm not so sure he's right. Those marathons, 10ks, 30ks really hurt...
