Over the last couple of years, I’ve been working on a route which, in my honest opinion, has the potential to become known as one of the five best 5.11s in the High Sierra. Against the Grain (1,800’, 5.11c) on the southeast face of Charlotte Dome is similar in quality to the formation’s South Face route (1,500’, III 5.8, Beckey-Jones-Rowell, 1970), but instead of having a single 5.8 crux with a mile of fourth-class climbing, it is fairly sustained in the 5.10 and 5.11 range. 

The route starts with wild crack climbing over a five-foot 5.11 roof. Three easier pitches (5.10d, 5.8, and 5.10a) allow your forearms to recover and take you to the best part: four pitches of sustained 5.10–5.11 crimping on a steep, fully bolt-protected headwall. Another two pitches (5.10a and 5.9) get you to the top. At the end of July, Brian Prince and I swapped leads on the first free ascent, with zero falls by leader or follower.

Charlotte Dome is usually approached from Kings Canyon, from the west, or Kearsarge Pass, from the east. Kearsarge Pass is the easier option due to less elevation gain and a well-maintained eight-mile trail for most of the way to the base. If approaching from the west, it’s recommended to stay at Charlotte Creek camp, which gives you the option to add some superb climbing on Bubbs Creek Wall—only 1.5 miles east of camp—into your trip. That being said, to reach Charlotte Dome from that camp, you have to overcome 2,000’ of elevation gain up a rough slope with unmaintained climber trails and lots of manzanita. 

— Vitaliy Musiyenko

Editor's Note: In 2017, Musiyenko and Jeremy Ross established a different route on the southeast face of Charlotte Dome, to the left of this new route: Dance of Dragons (IV 5.11a).