East Face Rock Climbing

The East Face of Tuolumne Peak offers adventurous, challenging climbing in a spectacular setting. Expect solitude. The views of the entirety of Tuolumne Meadows from the climbs and the entirety of Yosemite National Park from the summit are fantastic.

The main bowl is 300-400’ tall. The rock is surprisingly solid given the talus field at its base and the fractured appearance from afar. The fractures are handy for gear placements and climbing lines; we were always glad that we carried TCUs and offset cams. Also expect some scrappy sections of flakey granite. A rope-length scramble above the main bowl is another, smaller, lower angle bowl with a 200’ headwall, also of pretty good quality. On either side of this upper headwall are broken cliffs of poorer quality rock.

The cliff faces south-east; there is no shade here; it can be an inferno with a forecast high of 75, even at 10000’; consider this venue an option for a chilly day.

If there is any hint of snowpack, much of the cliff will be streaming water from the upper bowl and the south-shoulder; snowpack can be scoped from many other climbing areas in Tuolumne Meadows, including the top of Dozer Dome and the base of Little Sheba.

The Roper high-sierra guide lists two climbs on the east face, creatively called Left Side and Right Side. The Right Side is a convenient landmark as this huge, left-facing corner is all too obvious. It is a contender for the biggest sandbag in book, and much of the water draining from the upper bowl pours down this route, long after the snow has disappeared.