Tom Grundy's 2025 Sierra Challenge Day 3 Eichorn Minaret Page

2025-08-03, Today was a day I was a bit worried about - going up Clyde Minaret was a longish but known sort of day, but going on to tag Eichorn and Michael Minaret was a bigger and scarier proposition. Eichorn was on the Challenge in 2006. Bob also did Michael that day, but he brought a rope and rappelled the chute to get down. Sean O had done all 3 later and then backtracked to get back down. I started at 6 with the main group. Many were going to the Challenge peak - Ritter, but others to Clyde Minaret. Clement was also interested in Eichorn and Michael.

We walked down the trail to the San Joaquin River and then crossed it and headed up the hill to Shadow Lake. Then a brief bit on the JMT before taking the trail up towards Ediza Lake. Somewhere along here I said goodbye to Sean O and Chris K who were going up Volcanic Ridge. I left others at the outlet to Ediza Lake where they split off to head to Ritter. It was here that a bunch of cross country runners passed running along the trail. At least 2 of them took a wrong turn, but they must have figured it out as I didn't hear about any SAR.

Mount Ritter and Banner Peak reflected in Shadow Lake
Waller Minaret is also visible to the left

reflection in Iceberg Lake L-R Kehrlein, Clyde, Eichorn, Rice, Bedayn, Dawson, Dyer Minarets
Clyde is the highest, we went up and right above the upper left blobby snowfield all in the sun

I caught up to some people as we did a rising traverse on a semi-trail through the talus up above Iceberg Lake to the outlet of Lake Cecile. There I got some water (I assumed I could get more later, but wasn't sure) and we watched the people ahead of us up above. I was near the back of the pack when we got to the snowfield, but I didn't waste much time stashing my crampons and ice axe on the far side (I didn't need them above) and then scrambling up the rock. I angled right and passed the group to get onto the ramp leading up to the scramble up Clyde Minaret. I did my best to follow the way we came down from the rock climb in 2019 . I motored up the scrambling as best I could and when I got near the top I saw Clement there - he had already been up Clyde and was ready to head for Eichorn, so I climbed up to him and we headed off into new territory.

Chris H comes up above Iceberg Lake (Lake Cecile is to right)

Levi gets water melting out of the snow, Matt looks on

scramble ponies heading up Clyde Minaret

Sean C higher on Clyde Minaret

panorama from the ridge between Clyde and Eichorn Minarets
Michael is the scary looking one center right, Eichorn right of that, Ritter far right, Clement in the shade on the right

At first it was pretty straightforward going down the ridge veering off on one side or the other as necessary. Then we got to a sharp saddle that butted into a cliff. It seemed possible to go down and across a ledge with a tat-rap to the right, but the cliff that way looked pretty steep. Another possibility was going across the saddle and traversing the face on what looked like ledges up to a weakness to the left. Clement read Bob's trip report and it seems like that was the way he went. I went first and there were good feet and very positive handholds almost the whole way with one harder move at the transition from traverse to rising climbing. This was made a bit harder by some loose balanced rocks on ledges. I carefully worked my way up and then took pics of Clement coming up - he also stalled a bit there before working it out. Then we continued on up to the crest again where it looked like the best option was to traverse on the left side above the snow - so we did. Clement started up before I did and ended up on harder slower terrain, I went almost below the summit before I started up. Or what I thought was the summit - turns out there was one more notch to negotiate before the summit. There we were able to take pics of people on Clyde (Chris Henry) and signed the register. There was also an old register in a little tin that was pretty much destroyed by water and rust.

I traverse out onto the face to get onto Eichorn Minaret (Clement photo)

Clement making the move onto Eichorn Minaret

looking back at Clyde Minaret

Clement on Eichorn Minaret checking for beta on how to proceed
Clyde is the obvious peak on the right

panorama from Eichorn Minaret
Michael is center right, Clyde is center left

Next up we had to get down to the saddle between Eichorn and Michael. We mostly just headed down the easiest way we could see, heading west a bit as we neared the saddle and then cutting back to it. We went a bit down the gulley to the west and crossed it and then headed along ledges and dropped down towards a large cairn we could see - here we found the Starr memorial plaque Bob had helped install back in bit of an epic in 2003. We signed in to the register and then dropped down into the gulley to the right and up that - one on each side to avoid dropping rocks on each other. At the top we went through the right notch and then carefully traversed around to the south to get to the N face of Michael Minaret. We followed a ramp up and left and then cut back right passing a single nut with a carabiner in a crack and then farther around onto the west side and up to the top. This makes it sound simple, but in reality we spent a fair amount of time searching for the easiest path up this improbably steep face (improbable that there is a 4th class way up). We were both pretty pleased to make it. We signed in to the register and took pics and then headed back.

Clement on Michael Minaret, Clyde is the obvious peak on the right
Eichorn summit is out of view to the left, the black dike we followed on the return cuts up below the snow

panorama from Michael Minaret, Ritter and Banner are on the left, Eichorn is center left, Clyde Minaret is just left of center

Michael Minaret register features a silhouette of the minaret skyline
placed by the shadowy "Sierra Register Committee"

We made pretty decent time back down and traversed above the plaque back to the col with Eichorn Minaret. There we observed a black dike that seemed to provide a path across below the snowfield. There was a stemming downclimb to follow it down but then it got us up to the E side of Eichorn quite well. The downclimb I was worried about proved to be easier to downclimb than upclimb (you could grab decent handholds and sort of slide down until your feet hit the ledge) and soon we were back where we met up hours earlier. Clement headed down while I went on up to the summit of Clyde Minaret.

Clyde Minaret summit register
this one placed by the Sierra Club

I had a late lunch and signed in to the Clyde register and watched an eagle far below. Then I started scrambling down. I figured Clement was well out of the way below so I worried more about being safe and moving quickly than avoiding knocking rocks down. I made decent time back to my stashed gear and then down to Lake Cecile. I tried to hurry, but there was only so much hurry left in my legs. I reserved it for jogging on the downhills that weren't too steep or rocky. Probably my best stretch of jogging was along the San Joaquin River before the trail started uphill. At the top of the uphill a man asked me if the trail I came from went to Agnew Meadow - nope - but I'm going there now. It turns out Google Maps vaguely had the meadow where there is a meadow - not the parking area. So they followed me back to the parking area - glad to make it out before dark.

bald eagle far below over Iceberg Lake

zoomed in on the bald eagle

I was met by Iris who had some dinner ready to go. She drove while I ate. Another advantage of being slow was we didn't leave until after the entrance station was no longer in operation. We headed south and up the road to Mosquito Flats where we took one of the last few remaining parking spaces.

Total for the day 3 peaks. Garmin said 18.3 mi and 5381 ft of elevation gain and a lot of scrambling.

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