Once upon a sunny morning, a man sees a white Unicorn with a golden horn in his garden, cropping his roses. He rushes up to his wife and wakes her up. "There is a Unicorn in the garden" he says, "eating roses". His wife gives him an unfriendly look, "the Unicorn is a mythical beast". So begins a classic modern fable.
"There
is the Unicorn from the meadows", says Ron Karpel, waking
me up from my dozing. "The Unicorn is a mythical beast",
I mutter. We have been driving for the past five hours after having
started off from the Bay Area at a ghastly morning hour. So began
our hike to Unicorn Peak (10880 ft) in our garden, Tuoloumne Meadows,
on Sunday, 17 Oct, 99.
Starting
from the back of the campground at Tuoloumne, a couple of miles
of easy hiking on an evenly graded trail got us to an unmarked
fork which headed west. Within a quarter of a mile on this fork,
we came to Elizabeth Lake which we skirted from the north side
till we came to the gentle class-2 slopes of Unicorn Peak's west
side. Angling north-west on the slabs, we came to the small notch
between the middle and north summits of the peak. At this point,
there is a small arete of seemingly unclimbable rocks that lead
to the summit. But there is a way by circling either to the right
or to the left and a couple of airy class-3 moves later we were
on a small platform looking at a large boulder on the route.
Here,
we consolidated our packs into one and Ron pulled out his 9mm
half-length rope and gave me a few hexes and cams and graciously
let me lead. One may clamber directly on to the face of the boulder
and use the knobs and other features on it to climb it but it
was too much of a high step for me, so I decided to go on the
left and under it. This is the only hard move of the climb as
the left side is exposed. Carefully avoiding eye contact with
the void below me and crouching on the small ledge underthe boulder,
wedging my hands in a crack between the boulder and a smaller
rock I let my feet out into the void and found a small foothold
and was able to slide to my left till I came to the rock on the
other side and was able to stem with my left foot and thus get
on and over the boulder. I did not have to place protection. A
few more easier steps and I was at the top. Ron quickly followed
me up, making light of that class-4 step and we were on the hornof
the Unicorn. No register here, nor is the peak on THE LIST, which
we found to be very odd indeed.
The
long wait at the summit, not wanting to let go of an ending season,
finally came to an end. This time Ron lead and I belayed. He set
three pieces on the way down and I followed to the platform where
we had left some of our stuff. The hike out was uneventful and
we got back to the cars to make it a total of six hours, ending
an enjoyable trip to a most striking peak.
Did
the man in the fable get put in the booby-hatch for claiming to
have seen a Unicorn in his garden? I wont tell you what happens.
I will let you enjoy that fable for yourself. It is a classic
too.
Arun Mahajan
(references to 'The Unicorn in the Garden' from 'Fables for our time' by James Thurber).