This year has been a standout season for Yosemite’s Climbing Trails Program. 260 volunteers worked on 10 climbing access trails throughout the park. Over 2000 hours were spent mitigating erosion through restoration, delineation, and strategic sections of rock work. Our volunteers spanned ages 16 to 60 and outdoor organizations traveled from around the country to lend a hand protecting Yosemite’s incredible climbing areas.
Climbing Trails 2016
| Hours Worked | 2118 |
| Number of volunteers (person days) | 257 |
| Groups | 14 |
| Trail worked (feet) | 26630 |
| Stone steps | 112 |
| Drainage restoration (feet) | 1575 |
| Trail elimination (feet) | 3430 |
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- We started out the season by removing a bear box crushed by ice sheets from Middle Cathedral. A wonderful team from The North Face helped us to carry out the old bear box and bring in the new one, which we placed at a safer location.
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- Next, we worked with the UC Merced Yosemite Leadership program performing restoration work and delineation to the east side of the El Cap trail.
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- The Access Fund came out for their yearly Stewardship Workshop. We started our month long project working on a badly eroded section of the trail to the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral.
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- After the weekend Stewardship workshop a dedicated group from the Mazamas stayed for the rest of the week and put in hard work crushing rocks and moving logs.
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- We spent the beginning of our summer months in Tuolumne Meadows doing short projects focusing on delineating trails to concentrate climber’s impacts to durable areas. Through simple delineation work we are able to make a large impact on the restoration of an area in a short amount of time.
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- We worked on several bouldering access routes as well as the Tenaya Peak approach trail. REI sent a group of employees to help stabilize the Tuolumne Campground boulder area and move the approach trail out of a drainage slope and onto a more durable ridgeline.
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- At the end of the summer the Mazamas returned and we headed out to Phobos Demos cliff to work on a badly eroded section of trail leading to one of the most iconic crack climbs in the Meadows, Goldfinger.
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- Using rope-lowers we moved some large boulders into the destabilized slope to build a durable surface for climbers to approach on.
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- To finish out our season we returned to the valley for the park wide annual cleanup “Facelift” to begin work on the access route to Washington Column. Over three days we dug in the dirt and stacked stones creating about 100 feet of improved trail to one of Yosemite’s most iconic big walls.
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- This year our volunteers donated over $40,000 worth of labor to the Climbing trails program. This program is something that we could not do without the support of these volunteers.
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- We would like to thank everyone who came and participated this year and look forward to more fun and service next season!
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- Climber Steward Camden Clements eyes down his next segment of trail.
Climbing Trails is grant funded with kind donations from the Yosemite Conservancy. Since 2010, over three miles of climbing access trails have been improved and braided social trails removed throughout Yosemite Valley and Tuolumne Meadows thanks to the support of volunteers and the Yosemite Conservancy.
