Calaveras Dome
Mokelumne River canyon, Hwy 4 above Arnold · near Arnold / Bear Valley · Sierra Nevada / Yosemite
Rock Climbing
At a glance
- Skill level
- advanced
- Grade range
- 5.9–5.12d
- Best season
- May–October · ~4,000 ft, hot midsummer — early starts and shade
Permits and booking
- Permit
- No permit or fee (Stanislaus National Forest). Remote — the nearest ambulance is ~90 minutes; watch for poison oak on the approach, and carry two 60m ropes for the descents.
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- No
Rock Climbing detail
- Climb types
- trad · multi-pitch · big-wall
- Rock type
- Granite — a big, clean Sierra Nevada batholith dome
- Route count
- ~44 routes
- Signature routes
- Old Smokey (5.9, 7 pitches) · Karakoram Highway (5.11c, ~19 pitches) · Sierra Oro (5.12d, 9 pitches)
- First timer note
- Committing multi-pitch trad with a slow rescue window — not a beginner venue. Hire one of the local guides for a first visit rather than attempting it self-supported.
- Intl tip
- Yosemite-quality backcountry granite without the permits or crowds, but genuinely remote — rescue is ~90 minutes out. Go with experience or a guide, and bring two 60m ropes for the descents.
The guide
Calaveras Dome is one of California's great overlooked big trad walls — a clean granite sweep deep in the quiet Mokelumne River…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Calaveras Dome — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 38.48742, -120.22818