Sky Blue Lake Basin is a beautiful area to the west of the LeConte-Corcoran ridge. Chaz Langelier and I ventured out to the basin in June and spotted an unnamed Toblerone-shaped formation above Primrose Lake. The lower two-thirds of the peak consisted of cracks and corners, and up high was a steep orange headwall that made both of us salivate. We agreed it was too picturesque not to attempt. [This south-southeast-facing formation is on an eastern subpeak of Mt. Pickering (13,474’).]

We began up a steep corner system in the left lower quadrant of the face, passing through two overhangs, leading to a very prominent sloping dihedral with surprisingly moderate climbing. We climbed the headwall diagonally up and left to the summit on a route we called Oo-De-Lally, a reference to the song from the animated film Robin Hood (800’, 5.10).

Returning for more fun the next day, we climbed a more central weakness to the right of Oo-De-Lally, which led up through steep, wide cracks. At the base of the headwall, we traversed to a tower that frames the right side of the orange face and climbed it steeply to the summit: Infinity Pool (900’, 5.10+). One of my approach shoes emancipated itself from my harness while I led through a squeeze, never to be seen again, so I had to make the several-mile “depproach” to camp with one climbing shoe taped to the end of my foot, my heel hanging out the back.

Chaz returned to work, and Lenore Sparks then joined me for a third consecutive day of climbing. Now wearing a pair of dollar-store flip-flops I’d brought for wearing around camp, I hiked back to the formation with Lenore, headed for the main prize. Our route climbed through over- hangs and fantastic finger and tight hand cracks, and finished with tenuous climbing through the right-leaning headwall splitter. Donathan Mustache (900’, IV 5.12a) is one of the best backcountry alpine lines in the multiverse. We made it back to Lone Pine before the last call at the taco truck, my flip-flop-shod feet painted marble green by a mixture of sweat and decomposed Sierra granite.

These three routes appear to be the first technical climbs on the peak, which we have decided to call Marie Maynard Daly Peak after the late researcher (1921–2003) who was the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States.

— Cameron Smith