Sun, May 24, 2020
|
With: | Tom Becht |
Iris Ma | |
Tom Grundy |
Bart Dome had first been brought to my attention back in 2006 when Matthew pointed it out as we went by it on our way to Stegosaurus Fin deep in the Domeland Wilderness. I more or less forgot about it for 15yrs until I happen to find myself going by it once again last Fall while on a solo outing. Unable to find a scrambing route to the summit, it simmered in the back of my mind as a rope climb for which I would need to find friends. TomB had planned to spend the Memorial Day weekend in Big Meadow and this seemed a good opportunity. Iris and TomG were among a handful of others to join us and would prove the key to success. Between our party of four, we carried two ropes and two sets of gear, intending to have two rope teams. There are a number of developed routes on Bart Dome's SE Face, but the only one I had any chance of climbing was the 5.7 Aquaman that follows a series of water grooves up the 800-foot face. The approach is on the longish side, 6.5mi to the base of the formation, starting at Big Meadow.
We started from the east side of Big Meadow at 7:30a, taking nearly
three hours to reach Bart Dome. The route goes over a pass between Big Meadow
and Manter Meadow, the pass marking the
Wilderness boundary. At
Manter Meadow we turned left, following the Domeland Trail through the
burned area (from the 2000 Manter Fire) and past several
trail junctions. It wasn't until nearly 10a that we first got a look at
Bart Dome and our impressions
from a distance were not
encouraging, at least to TomB and I. Far more skilled than us, Iris and TomG
were more cavalier about the project. Even as we reached
the base
of the SE
Face, the route - now obvious - did not look much easier. The route looked to go
nearly vertical after the first two pitches and my confidence was is in short
supply. I was doubting I had the skills to lead this thing. TomB was having even
more doubts, his first comment, "I can't climb this thing!" He hadn't realized
this was a 6-pitch climb. "I've never done a mult-pitch climb and haven't
even climbed anything since we did Church Dome [in 2017]." He gave it some more
thought while TomG and Iris offered some encouragement, but in the end he
decided not to attempt it. This left us in the unfortunate position of having
to switch to a slower 3-person rope team instead of two teams, but that was a
blessing in disguise for me. By the third pitch it became clear that I would
not have been able to lead the first 5.7 section, and TomB and I would have
ended up retreating, probably leaving some gear behind.
TomB hung about while the three of us went about
gearing up
for the climb. TomG
decided the best course would be for him to trail two ropes and then belay both
Iris and I simultaneously as we followed one behind the other. This is by no
means an easy feat, but TomG's skills were clearly up to it as he deftly
handled all the leads, placing all the gear and working his arms overtime
hauling up both ropes. Our ropes were 50m and 60m in length, so the shorter rope
would be our limiter in how high we could reach on each pitch. The route is an
old one (all
bolts were quarter inch) put up when 50m was the standard
rope length, so this proved no real hindrance. Iris followed just above me,
cleaning gear (I had little
to do other than breaking down the belay station before starting up), and once
the two of us had hand joined Tom at the next station, we merely had to
reorganize the two ropes before Tom could begin the next pitch. It took us a
few pitches to work out the details efficiently, but we had plenty of daylight
and time would never really be an issue.
The route description in Moser and Vernon's Southern Sierra Rock Climbing:
DOmelands is succinct: "Third or fourth class the first pitch, then swim
up the deep chimneys and grooves to the top." As suggested, we scrambled
the first pitch to a good starting ledge just above a bush of pink
penstemons growing out of the rock. This was
a little dicier than it
had looked at first, but we
managed it without losing anyone. The
first roped pitch goes at 5.6 and makes for a good warm-up. Though the
route description mentions "deep chimneys" it's mostly deep grooves and what I
would term shallow chimneys - it was not the sort of route you could squeeze
your body into places. The first two
belay stations had a collection
of old bolts with hangers easy to find, but not so easy to use - these were
uncomfortable positions, especially for three persons. The
second roped pitch goes at 5.7 and I thought this the crux of the
route. The handholds are lacking here and I was more than happy to have a
toprope above me. The
second belay station was the weakest, so much so
that Iris and I switched ropes, putting me on the longer one so I could wait
15ft lower on
a better stance.
Pitch 3 was also 5.7, but the
holds were bigger and the climbing more enjoyable. The
3rd belay station was larger and the most comfortable yet, easily
accomodating the three of us. There were no more bolts above the 2nd belay
station, but this was hardly problematic with the better ledges and shelves and
plenty of places to take pro. The
4th pitch is a little easier at 5.6,
especially after the previous two 5.7 pitches. At the top of this, we considered
4th classing the rest of the route since it looked to get significantly easier
(5.1). We decided to let Tom run ahead
trailing the ropes in case it
turned out to be harder than it looked. Probably a good thing, too, as it turned
out to be
easy with a belay, sketchier otherwise.
It was 3:15p by the time we reached the summit, a little over four
hours for the roped portion - no record to be sure, but we had a fine time and
all enjoyed the route a good deal. We spent about 40min
at the summit,
wandering about the large area,
peering over one side then another
looking for rap stations. With the two ropes we had options on how to get down,
but in the end we settled on the safer route described by the guidebook off the
South Shoulder that can be done with a single 50m rope. We eventually figured
out there were no rap stations in sight because it wasn't necessary to rap from
the summit. In fact, the descent had some pretty good class 3 scrambling that
adds to the enjoyment of the route. I
used one of two possible chimneys
we identified off the top, Tom and Iris
using the other. Then
another 15min got us to
the first of two rap stations. One of
the more unusual raps, it
drops into
a deep crack barely
shoulder width. At the bottom, dark and cool, it's necessary to work east
out of the crack, followed by another
scrambling episode to
the
second rappel station.
This rappel is shorter and more
standard fare, but still the scrambling is not done. Tom ran off ahead to
retrieve our stuff from the base of the route while we paused to coil the rope
one last time. After
getting off the granite apron at the base of Bart
Dome, we scrambled down through
some trees and rock, eventually
reconnecting with Tom
back at the trail. We took about 20min to
reoganize our packs and eat the lunch we'd forgotten about until now. It was
5:30p, much later than we had originally assumed the climb would take, and we
had to leave the second project, nearby Peak 8,484ft, for another time. Still,
there was more than two hours of daylight and we could afford
a more relaxed return.
We had been concerned that it would be hot in the afternoon as we returned to
the burned zone and
Manter Meadow, but the lateness of the
afternoon and a good breeze kept temperatures quite nice for the entirety of
the return. It would be after 7:30p by the time we returned to
the trailhead at Big Meadow. Much like the previous day, the TH was
packed with cars, the same motorcycles were
obnoxiously cruising up and down the roadway, the campsites still packed to the
gills. Our Wilderness experience over, we headed back to our own camp on the
other side of the meadow for showers, dinner and campfire, in that order...
This page last updated: Sun May 31 12:01:12 2020
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