[TR] Mt. McLoughlin - East Ridge 5/14/2006

[skeletor]

Climb: Mt. McLoughlin -East Ridge

 

Date of Climb: 5/14/2006

 

Trip Report:

Drove down to McLoughlin on Sunday from Bend. Missed the turn off and ended up going down through Klamath Falls, so we didn’t get started till nearly 8 am. Given the weather was headed into the 80s, probably not a great move.

The road up to the trailhead was blocked by a mound of snow, we could have gotten around it but we figure the road probably wouldn’t be passable to much further, so we parked at the snowpark and took the PCT trailhead in. Trail was patchy for the first mile or so, then all snow, still pretty solid through the forest, not too much post holing.

We were following some footsteps and at one point just lost the track and started heading uphill. By the time we got out into the open it was pretty warm and the snow was rather soft. We angled towards the ridge and climbed up to a solitary tent. Just as we got there, the occupant came skiing down from the summit. After a brief chat, we followed their steps up the ridge and to the summit. Plenty of postholing along the way, we finally topped out a little before 2, six-hours after leaving the parking lot.

Not having yet earned my pink belt in backcountry skiing, we decided to ski down the gentle south face of the mountain. Snow was wet and heavy, fighting us at every turn. Dropped down 2,000 feet in 20 minutes. Pretty sweet! As it was pretty late, we decided to keep skiing as far down as we could through the forest, over pine cones, and branches, and the occasional rock, eventually dropping down to about 150 feet above the parking lot elevation. We were just kind of eyeballing the direction back, and eventually popped out onto the highway. We guessed we were too far west, and after ¼ mile confirmed that with the mile marker. We had to walk a half-hour to get to the trailhead, for a 2 hour 15 minute descent from the top.

 

 

 

Approach Notes:

Snow cover pretty much all the way.

Edited May 18, 2006 by skeletor

[skeletor]

Put some pics in the gallery but couldn't figure out how to put them in this post.

[fettster]

Thanks for posting, haven't seen anything on McLoughlin in a long while. How windy was it up top and how was visibility into CA? I didn't find your gallery, probably don't know where to look.

[corvallisclimb]

to post pics... there is the easy image quicklink thing or you can just do it like this to find out the picture url, right click on the image and select properties. the url will have to end in .jpeg ... hope that helps

[gapertimmy]

nice job d00d. that pink belt will be yours in no time!

[skeletor]

Not at all windy at the top.

 

Gorgeous views of Shasta...