Michael Minaret

 mountain, summit, rocks, climbing area

Elevation 12,240 feet.
First ascent 6 September 1923 by Charles Michael, the assistant postmaster for Yosemite.
Michael's route (Michael's Chute) is mostly class 4, perhaps some class 5.
This is an excellent class 4 scramble from the Portal. Pass through the portal to the east side, make an airy traverse around the overhanging east side, then scramble up the north and northwest sides of Michael Minaret to the summit. (This minaret looks impossibly steep when viewed from Clyde Minaret's summit!)

On 25 August 25 1933, legendary climber Norman Clyde found Walter "Pete" Starr's body on a ledge high on the Northwest face of Michael Minaret.
Starr had fallen to his death on a solitary attempt of a new line on this Minaret some three weeks earlier, on the 3rd of August. A search party composed of the best climbers of the time (including Clyde, Jules Eichorn, Dick Jones, Francis Farquhar and Glenn Dawson) had failed to locate Starr's whereabouts over the previous ten days.
The search had been called off after the rescue party had climbed a number of new and difficult routes in the Ritter Range.
Undeterred, Clyde stayed alone up here and, climbing along the west side of Michael Minaret, he finally located Starr's body. Five days later he and Jules Eichorn climbed back to Pete Starr's final resting place on a ledge below the summit of Michael Minaret, and buried his body where it lay, while Starr's father, W.A. Starr, Sr. watched from below.
A variant route, Clyde's ledge, is class 4. It is the route pioneered by Clyde the day he found Starr's body.

Left hand photo of Michael is looking up from Amphitheater Lake.
Middle photo shows a recently emplaced bronze memorial plaque dedicated to the memory of "Pete" Starr. It is just to the left of the Portal (Michael Chute) near Starr's burial site, thus serving as a sort of headstone.

Yellow outline traces the 12,000 foot elevation contour line.