Cathedral Peak (California)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cathedral Peak
Cathedral Peak
Elevation	10,911 ft (3,326 m)
Location	California, USA
Range	Cathedral Range, Sierra Nevada
Coordinates	37°50′52.5″N, 119°24′19.8″W
Topo map	USGS Tenaya Lake
Type	Granite arête
Age of rock	Cretaceous
First ascent	1869 by John Muir
Easiest route	rock climb (class 4)

Cathedral Peak is the crowning summit of the Cathedral Range, a mountain range in the south-central portion of Yosemite National Park in Tuolumne County, California. The range is an offshoot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The peak, which lends its name to the range, derives its name from its cathedral-shaped peak, which was formed by glacial activity: the peak remained uneroded above the glaciers in the Pleistocene.

The west peak of Cathedral Peak (shown foreshortened in the photograph) is called Eichorn Pinnacle, after Jules Eichorn, who first ascended a YDS 5.4 route in 1931.

In 1869, John Muir wrote My first summer in the Sierra, where he described Cathedral Peak as

“

The body of the Cathedral is nearly square, and the roof slopes are wonderfully regular and symmetrical, the ridge trending northeast and southwest. This direction has apparently been determined by structure joints in the granite. The gable on the northeast end is magnificent in size and simplicity, and at its base there is a big snow-bank protected by the shadow of the building. The front is adorned with many pinnacles and a tall spire of curious workmanship. Here too the joints in the rock are seen to have played an important part in determining their forms and size and general arrangement. The Cathedral is said to be about eleven thousand feet above the sea, but the height of the building itself above the level of the ridge it stands on is about fifteen hundred feet. A mile or so to the westward there is a handsome lake, and the glacier-polished granite about it is shining so brightly it is not easy in some places to trace Front of Cathedral Peak the line between the rock and water, both shining alike.

”

Cathedral Peak, looking southwest across Tuolumne Meadows.

[edit] Geology

Cathedral Peak is an intrusion into an area of older intrusive (or plutonic) and metamorphic rock in the Sierra Nevada batholith. It is part of a grouping of intrusions called the Tuolumne Intrusive Suite. Cathedral Peak is the youngest of the rock formations in the Suite, dating to 83 million years ago. Its composition is mainly Cretaceous-era granodiorite with phenocrysts of microcline.^[1]