Third Pillar of Dana (11,475 ft, 5.10b)

I climbed the Third Pillar of Dana in Tuolumne on 9/8/17 with partner Jacob. We hiked from the Glacier Canyon trailhead at Tioga Lake, two hours up to the Dana Plateau to camp there, at 11,475 ft. That's Mount Dana in the background to the left, but the climb isn't on Dana, it is on the escarpment of the Dana Plateau where you camp. The beauty of this climb is that you descend a 4th class ridge from the plateau (the edge of which is at the extreme left of this photo) to the base of the climb, and when you've climbed to the top of the pillar, you're back at camp. We had the plateau and the climb to ourselves.

The descent is big and blocky. Stay mostly to climber's left on the ridge, then cut right at a big diamond-shaped boulder to cross the scree/snow field to the base of the climb. It took us about an hour and a half to get down and set up to start the climb.

Route profile from the approach. This is a good looking climb!

Route from the base. My beta for the route would emphasize one thing: On the lower pitches, stay left of center of the pillar. Reports warn about this, but thinking I was far enough left, at one point I led about a quarter pitch up into a section that turned into steep, hard, flairing, largely unprotectable cracks, and I had to lower off a slung horn. Going left instead, we found the climbing to be easier and well protected.

The lower pitches were nice and sunny, but spotty clouds and wind made the upper pitches a tad chilly.

My partner Jacob.

Jacob belaying me from atop a massive detached flake about halfway up. This was my crux pitch, with a 5.10a finger crack just above the belay and a short 5.10b section off a ledge just above that. Despite reports warning that this move is not very well protected, I was able to reach up and right and make a blind 1.2cm cam placement behind an upward-facing hold that I felt pretty good about.

The sun came out again for the last pitch. The 5.10b thin crack under the roof toward the bottom of this pitch seemed difficult to protect well, so Jacob went left onto 5.9 flakes and cracks that reports call "loose" but that we found to be solid and protectable. This set us up for the stellar final half pitch of the climb.

The super fun last section to the top features vertical 5.9/10 cracks with great blocky holds just where you need them.

Looking down at the entire route from the last stance before pulling over the top.

A great view of Mono Lake from the top! The climb itself took us about five hours, as we got off route once and moved a bit slower coming from sea level just a day before up to 11,000+ feet. The weekend before, we'd prepped for the climb by doing the first two 5.10a pitches of Human Fright at Tahquitz, followed by the entirety of El Camino Real, with it's 10a lieback pitch, and that combination actually felt a bit more technically difficult and certainly more sustained than anything on this climb. But it was great to finally do this legendary climb with it's "best 5.9 pitch in the universe" in such an exquisite setting.