“We’d like to take this route all the way to the top. We have nine days set aside in mid-May for that,” Lance Colley told Gripped in April about his route Gaia, a then-seven pitch 5.12c on the north Face of Middle Cathedral rock in Yosemite. Over the last weekend in May, they completed their goal, establishing the route into a grade VI at 18 pitches and rating it 5.12c A3+.

“I did it with Brandon Adams, of course. And then our friends Miles Fullman, and Sam Stuckey joined us for the last push at the top,” continues Colley.

“The ledges were awesome. We stayed at two different ones, and they were great. I think this route could be pretty popular because it’s, it’s so chill (shady) there are ledges (so you don’t need a portaledge), the climbing is good, and the approach is short.”

I back up his statement, saying, “It’s like a 10-minute stroll to get there. And it’s 2,000 feet, Half Dome size.”

Due to the north-facing nature of the route, which means it gets little sun, Colley and the team wore puffy jackets – despite climbing in the warm days of late spring — while establishing the line, which required 40 bolts. The climbing above the team’s highpoint seven pitches up the wall included a mix of 5.8 C2 climbing with one stretch of A3+. They climbed this section via beaks and hooks until they pendulumed into a corner that took solid cams. After fixing lines back to their high point 1000 feet up the wall, hauling gear to various ledges, and pushing the route to the top of Middle Cathedral, they high-fived on top, and then they rappelled the line with nine 70-meter rappels. As they descended, they removed all their lines and stashed gear.

“It’s a clean face,” Colley says. “We tried to make it really nice to rappel it.” Colley says that he and his team removed loose blocks and that some of the cracks were dirty, but not heinously, meaning they pulled out dirt but didn’t look like a gardener caught in a hurricane.

“Our goal was mostly to go to the top, so we weren’t super focused on freeing hard sections. I think with variations, a lot of the route can go free,” he says.

“Brandon and I both ripped beaks and took falls on the aid pitches,” adds Colley.

Middle Cathedral Rock

Middle Cathedral sits across from El Capitan and is home to various long free and aid climbs, with dozens of lines ranging from moderate to cutting edge. Mountain Project says it has 60 routes, with the hardest including the 20-pitch Father Time, 5.13b PG13, and 12-pitch Border County, 512c R. Both routes were established by Mickey Shaefer and company. Long classics on the wall include DNB (Direct North Buttress), a 17-pitch 5.10b, the 11-pitch 5.10 East Buttress, the 10-pitch 5.10c R Stoners Highway, and the first five pitches of Central Pillar of Frenzy at 5.9.

Gaia

Merriam-Webster defines Gaia as “the hypothesis that the living and nonliving components of earth function as a single system in such a way that the living component regulates and maintains conditions (such as the temperature of the ocean or composition of the atmosphere) so as to be suitable for life.”

Continues Colley, “We found once we got in the corners and stuff, they were dirtier. So probably not as clean as the bottom of the route, but it’s still really good and not atrociously dirty. We weren’t covered in dirt and plants getting up that thing.”

“It’s a grade VI first ascent. I think it’s pretty cool. I hope to inspire people to go on more adventures instead of just doing the same routes repeatedly.”