Two guys free soloing Matthes Crest South to North.

All Locations > California > Yosemite Nation… > Tuolumne Meadows > Cathedral Range > Matthes Crest > Matthes Crest Traverse - South to North (5.7 5a 15 V+ 13 MVS 4b)

Two guys free soloing Matthes Crest South to North.

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pulling the 5.7 diagonal crack crux

Climbers on the north tower.

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pigsflyinsd

Jun 22, 2015

“Two guys free soloing Matthes Crest South to North.”

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Nearby Photos

Roddy, Carlos, & Matt on the Matthes Crest.

Nearing the South summit on the Mathes Crest traverse

Matthes from 13,500 ft. June 16, 2008.

climber on Matthes Crest

Michelle on the step across (photo by Daniel)

Soon after gaining the Crest

Matthes Crest.

Looking back at the North summit from the 2nd half of the traverse. You can see climbers contemplating their next cruxy downclimb. The section in the view is probably the most exposed and awkward stretch of the entire route - July 23, 2005

the full traverse

Panoramic, looking south. September 23, 2009.

Pablo on fun part of a ridge

East face of Matthes Crest.

pulling the 5.7 diagonal crack crux

Two guys free soloing Matthes Crest South to North.

Climbers on the north tower.

Climbers on Matthess Crest<br>

matthes crest in middle

Camille fishing something out of her pack, near the beginning of Matthes Crest.

Jake on The Matthes Crest Traverse.

fall in Tuolumne

Ryan about to reach the N summit

The towers of Matthes.

Looking North from near the Summit of Matthes Crest

Pat makes his way up the North Pillar - one of the few, but excellent, class 5 sections of the route.

Matthes Crest from the North. Oct 2012

The southern part of the traverse, from the west.

Nearing the south summit climbing south to north.

J on one of the many easy ramps

Kia standing on both summits at the same time.

antiques

Somewhere still near the south end.

looking toward Echo Peaks

Matthes Crest

Camille and I take a break on Matthes to watch Brian climb.

Starting the traverse from the notch at the southern end using an alternate start--the crack farthest to the left of the normal route. This is a good alternative if the normal route is occupied. It's about 5.6.

Pretty hard to miss... The south to north traverse starts on the right edge of the photo. (This view is from the west, looking east)

downclimb from the first summit

the walk-off marking the end

the ridge from the approach

Foreground: Boris. Background: smoke from a 40k acre(at the time) wildfire ~100 miles away.

starting the best part, the traverse after the N summit

Looking back from first little peak along the ridge. We weren't sure how often we would want a rope and pro. As it turns out, we did the first section as two long pitches and then unroped for the ridge. We used the ropes again to climb the 5.7 OW crack that leads up to the North Summit. For roped climbing in the future, I would bring a small rack (BD #0.5 - #2, with maybe a second #2) and a bunch of slings. We ended up leaving slings to rap b/c we couldn't find the station at the North Summit, sorry for littering.

Duke with Conness in the background.

Carlos loving the exposure on the Matthes Crest.

the wave

August snow flurries looking from SW the start of the traverse

epic

so high!

on the ridge proper

sea of granite

another view of the descent

J on the first pitch

Moving along

Me at the North summit of Matthes Crest.

finally the snow has passed

Echo Peaks

Matthes Lake

N summit

the real final tower

Great weather and a pretty sweet slackline set up those folks have going there. Definitely recommend the full S to N traverse!