Southeast Buttress 5.6

Reed and Kirt climbed Cathedral Peak on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend 2016.

Driving up was even slower than expected with holiday traffic. We parked at the Cathedral Lakes trailhead at 2 pm and hiked to the base of Cathedral Peak by 3:15.
We figured that this late there wouldn't be many other climbers, and it looked good when we arrived with one party just starting. As Reed started leading the first pitch, another couple arrived. They climbed a parallel route.
This pitch was all about crack climbing. The other couple used less protection and climbed faster, passing us on the second pitch.
As expected, there were beautiful views from here.
At this point the sun was low in the sky. We could tell that we would have to hike out in the dark, which was OK.
At the top of the third pitch, the parallel couple decided to bail out while there was still daylight left. One of them thought he knew an easy way down.
The sun was now even lower in the sky.
Here is where we ran in the traffic jam. We caught up to a man-woman couple. They made the mistake of letting a "faster" group climb through. This group was slower going through the chute at the start of the fourth pitch. We waited half an hour for our turn. Meanwhile a party of three caught up to us. They didn't want to wait, so they climbed around to the left of the chute. This resulted in more traffic and waiting higher up.
Finally we got our turn climbing up the chute. Once I squeezed into it, I enjoyed climbing it. I had to remove my backpack. I clipped it onto the slings extending from the cams I was removing, then hauled it up later. I removed my Feathered Friends down jacket for this section, then wore it the rest of the trip. I was concerned about tearing it, but it held up great.
The sun set while we climbed the fourth pitch, so no more photos.
We had to wait a while to climb the fifth pitch.
By the time we reached the sixth and final pitch, it was after 10 and the sky and rock were black. Our Petzl Tikka and Reactik headlamps were super helpful here. Reed followed where a pair of climbers instructed him to go to reach the top, then he told me where to go. It was a bit spooky feeling thousands of feet of air below me, but not being able to see much.

There were no bolts on the summit. Old ones there had been cut off.

On the way down, we followed the path of the pair, who followed the climbers ahead of them, who had climbed down with a little alpenglow to guide them. We had the Supertopo with us, but the directions didn't make sense in the dark.

We caught up to the couple after two rappels. At this point we were on the right route down, but didn't know it. The couple headed down to the west and we followed them. This was our collective mistake. We should have gone uphill to the north, crossed east over the ridge of Cathedral, and down on real trails.

Instead we continued downhill. The woman was tired and unsteady, so we stayed with them. Downclimbing was very slow due to the steepness. I finally sacrificed some slings and carabiners to get us safely down two really steep sections. Around 2:30 am we joyously reached the forest and dirt to walk on. By 3 am we hit the John Muir Trail, and finally reached our cars at 4 am. What a marathon! It was 25 F in Tuolumne Meadows, so I was really glad to I had brought my down jacket. Reed was wearing shorts and it took him over an hour to get his legs warmed back up.