Condition inquiry. East Buttress of Middle Cathedral

Looking to climb the east buttress of middle cathedral (depending on weather of course) this weekend March 7th. Anyone know if there are any reasons not to? Snow,wet, etc?

It was fine a couple weeks ago. There was a storm that blew through this last weekend, but as soon as it warms up again I suspect it'll be good to go.

was in yosemite this weekend during the storm. Not really any accumulation on middle cathedral.

Thank you both for your info. I was going to climb the east buttress of el Capitan but I had some people tell me that the waterfall is definitely soaking the climb and that it wouldn't be a good idea. Switching the plans around and with the new rappel route I don't have to worry about topping out at dusk and getting lost on the Kat walk. It's looking to be a fun weekend.

Don't know about the rap, but the walk off was pretty straight forward...of course we didn't do it in the dark.

The route is pretty cruiser so get up on it early and you shouldn't be descending in the dark. Mostly 5.7 climbing with a few hard moves on a couple of pitches.

Awesome. I'm a solid 5.11b trad climber in Joshua Tree but when you add in route finding and take away the killer JTree friction, I don't assume anything. Lol

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Falcon closures have started on March 1 listing middle cathedral rock. It's a bit ambiguous as to whether east buttress is considered closed. Should we go for it this weekend?

nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/…

So I ended up climbing east buttress last Saturday after calling the park service and asking about the falcon closure. The east buttress is the only climb on Middle Cathedral that is open PROVIDING YOU DO NOT USE THE KAT WALK DECENT. We started at 8am at the base, climbed up to the 5.8 roof on pitch 2 and I mistakenly headed to the left to what turned out to be a bailer biener hanging on a sling attached to a bolt. Head out of the roof to the right, you know, where all the chalk is..oops and duh. Anyway we had the climb all to ourselves, and almost the whole park. We topped out, did the very very very well thought out rappels, (if you're rappeling from trees, you're not on the correct rappel route) and got back to the car in 6 hours. Beautiful day and no falcon disturbance. Do it!!

The rappel route

Don't go this way

"The east buttress is the only climb on Middle Cathedral that is open "

Shit, I guess I missed that memo. We did Central Pillar of Frenzy on Sunday & several other parties were climbing nearby too.

Glad you had fun. Curious where that bolt you bailed off of goes.

Jon Hartmann wrote:The east buttress is the only climb on Middle Cathedral that is open PROVIDING YOU DO NOT USE THE KAT WALK DECENT.

This is incorrect. Most everything on Middle is open except the upper pitches of the DNB to the North Buttress and the Kat Walk. Since the Kat Walk is half a mile long it's kind of ambiguous, but everyone realizes they are talking about the Kat Walk well to the right (west) of the East Buttress.

Since very few people ever top out any of the intermediate routes (e.g. Stoner's Highway - everyone raps after 9 pitches), they don't even need to bother defining where exactly they mean on the Kat Walk.

Middle Cathedral Rock – Closure includes “North Buttress,” “Direct North Buttress,” “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” and the Kat Walk. At the base, the first 5 pitches remain open.

from
nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/…

Yeah, my bad. Greg Barnes is totally correct. I don't know if that bailer biener went anywhere. It almost seemed like an alternate rappel route from higher up. There was what a bunch of slings higher up above that slung around a huge flake. The rock was very chossy and had tons of lichen so that should have tipped me off that I was off route. Live and learn.