Shoulder Season

One last rip in the Sierra "before" winter

I was blessed with many trips to the Sierra this year, and as a result I got to climb and hike in some of the most stunning landscapes i’ve ever witnessed. Mammoth lakes has continued to prove its case as one of the most special little pockets of land in the country, as if it needed to prove anything in the first place, with its endless alpine lakes, mountain ridges, meadows, streams, wildlife, and all of the other beautiful features you can imagine.

One climb that stood out as a clear favorite of the year was the North Arete of Crystal Crag - a stunning peak that is easy to acccess, a joy to climb, an escalator of sorts, to 360 views from a beautiful rocky ridge, with features of incredible solid quartz crystal that greet you upon the ridge. Climbing over the naturally formed stair features made of solid crystal feels like something from another planet, or even a fantasy film.

Ruben and I have been trying to make a climbing trip happen for a while now, and with summer ending, I knew the window of opportunity was closing to climb at crystal crag again for the year. Mammoth is mostly known for its snow sports, located at a pretty high altitude of around 8-10k feet. We talked about it for a few days, and were able to decide on Oct 30th.

The day before, we embarked on the 6 hour drive up to mammoth from LA, with the plan to van-camp at the trailhead and get an early morning start. Upon arriving to the parking area, was when we got the first sight of snow, of course, in the middle of the night, so it was unclear how the conditions would look in the daylight.

We awoke with the sun, and got a first glimpse at what was to become our objective for the day. To our surprise, there was fresh snow everywhere. we missed our window by only a day or two. We debated on what to do, and ended up deciding to make the 2 mile approach to the climb, and make the decision to summit upon closer inspection, worst case we turn around and we had an awesome hike with heavy bags for some added training, and we would go climb somewhere with lower elevation for the day.

The approach had significant snow from start to finish, which provided a much different experience than when I had done it earlier in the summer, but lucky for us somebody had done most of the hike the day before, and left us an easy trail of prints to follow. This was one of the most enjoyable approaches of my life, between the cool weather, insane scenery, and snow, at sunrise; it just couldn’t have gotten any better.

We quickly reached the base of the climb, with sprits high, and stoke higher, as it looked like most of the rock was exposed enough to climb, and very little solid ice to impair our safety. We got ourselves situated to climb, and I set off on the first pitch.

I find the first pitch of this route a bit awkward, especially since you aren’t really prepared to pull any hard moves, and they are some of the most awkward/challenging of the day, right off the deck. Combine that with the snow, and not wearing proper climbing shoes, and it can feel a little epic. After reaching a small ledge 15-20 feet into the first pitch I decided to pause and put my climbing shoes on as I needed to use some small features to progress safely. This would be the only time of the day I actually wore them, as standing on snow, with no socks, in rubber shoes is just as freezing cold as it sounds!

We climbed quickly and efficiently, I led and linked the first 2 pitches to a nice tree-belay station, then swung and Ruben led a pitch taking us to the base of the crystal features. After that I took us to the top and we simul-climbed a few pitches of ridge features.

Ruben was proper stoked, as I expected, on the obscure beauty of the crystal rocks, amplified of course by the landscape surrounding it, and by the joyous climbing that leads you there.

This was my first experience with climbing in the snow, and throughout the day I experienced how it felt to push on through numb fingers, toes, and face, providing new unforeseen cruxes due to our lack of preparation for this type of weather. It made the whole thing a lot more epic, however it was not quite enough to cause any major problems. A sweet spot.

We made decent time, got down safely, and trekked back to the van, just as stoked as we were at 6am a sort of rare experience for me - i’m usually so beat after a day like this - it was really refreshing to feel competent and fit even at the end of a longish outing. One thing was for sure - we were ready for some burgers. We hit mammoth brewing, a staple of the area, got our fill, gabbed with the bartender about our incredible day, and made the drive back to the city with pride, knowing that we’d just created some great memories, honed our skills in the mountains, and left with a new level of friendship.