Scrambling up Laurel Mountain. Photo by Dale Apgar.

All Locations > California > High Sierra > 05 - Convict La… > Laurel Mountain > Mendenhall Couloir (Easy 5th 1+ 3 I 5 M 1c)

Scrambling up Laurel Mountain. Photo by Dale Apgar.

ID 107753806 ·

Flag This Photo

· Copyright Violation?

How do we get down to the hot tubs? Tavis contemplates the descent after climbing the Mendenhall Couloir on Laurel Mountain. July, 2005

After the gully opens up, we climbed up and left, past the thin red band below in this picture, up to the big red band above. ( make sure to aim for the big red headwall that looms above)

Rate Photo

4.0 from 3 votes

Jeff Hebert

Aug 18, 2012

“Scrambling up Laurel Mountain. Photo by Dale Apgar.”

0 Comments

Nearby Photos

Snow tunnel at the start of the climb.

The fun way down.

Lauren partway up Laurel Mountain. The rock features lent itself very well to stemming and mantling on this route.

Cool ridge instead of staying inside the gulley near the top. (Stay right on better rock quality near top and you'll land on top of this beauty!)

Wide angle view looking down the Mendenhall Couloir with Convict Lake (and Crowley) in the background.

Skiing the Mendenhall Couloir above Convict Lake

INCOMING!!! About to get nailed by a snowball just below the summit ridge.
<br>
My cold prize for summiting
<br>
6/23/2018

Skiing the Mendenhall Couloir amidst colorful rock

Head right after this mini vein Peter's out to gain the ridge to the summit vs the nasty talus in the gully

Justice and Mike on the very unique red vein section about 3/4 of the way up
<br>
6/23/2018

Georgeous view from Convict Lake.

S.T. at a one of the steeper sections.

As mentioned in my comment, this was the most exposed and dangerous part of the climb, I thought. Traversing climbers left and below the red headwall in the big red band.

Yellow is the ridge descent ppl have mentioned, which we missed, and red is a continuation of a photo I posted. This is what we took and it wasn't bad.

Up the technical crux, may 2 low 5th moves, but pay attention.

Lindsey Jackson and Andrew Bassett romping up the fun red dike approximately 2/3 the way up.

How do we get down to the hot tubs? Tavis contemplates the descent after climbing the Mendenhall Couloir on Laurel Mountain. July, 2005

Scrambling up Laurel Mountain. Photo by Dale Apgar.

After the gully opens up, we climbed up and left, past the thin red band below in this picture, up to the big red band above. ( make sure to aim for the big red headwall that looms above)

The white rock encountered in the final gully, past the red bands, up and climbers left. You can see the thin red dike above the climbers heads. Take this vs the white gully.

Ryan at around 10,100 feet on Laurel's Northeast Gully

Taking another fun way down.

Snow covering the first 200 ft.
<br>
June 23 2018

Looking North, we took this scree trail down to the saddle, then picked up the faint trail above the bowl as drawn. We were able to meet up below the ridge we missed, and picked up the loose sandy descent back to the main hikers trail by the lake.

Gang ascent
<br>
6/23/2018

The descent off of Laurel. Stay on the ridge, sticking to the red/bronze colored rock. Don't turn right into a gully too early.

This is at 11,300 feet in the Northwest Gully on Laurel. Looks worse than it is. Big and loose, but if you stick to the "big" it's no problem.

From the bottom head up this first chute (deep and red on the bottom). It looks steep, but there's an easy exit on the top. And the surrounding rock is bad climbing.

Marlene about halfway up the route, cruising through fantastic clean limestone.

Looking down at Ryan in the talus from about fifty feet below Laurel Mountain's Summit. There's about 300 feet of this stuff below the summit. Use caution here. Lots of stuff to trundle.

Closer detailed 3d overlay of the path I took down the North Ridge Descent (scree slopes). Hope this helps people visualize.

An overlay of the ascent and descent path I took on Laurel Mountain showing the Northeast Gulley and the North Ridge descent down the scree slopes. Hope this helps people visualize the path.

Hiking descent (blue) vs scrambling descent (pink) to scree/sand slope to lake trail (green). Blue is highly recommended.

The gray limestone has the best friction.

Things start to get loose at 11,100 feet. This is looking up. There's still a lot of ways to avoid climbing in loose stuff if you look for them.

The start - 8 June 2018

A lot of the route in middle section looked something like this

Ryan low on the Northeast Gully of Laurel

Welcome

Join the Community! It's FREE

Already have an account? Login to close this notice.

Get Started

onX products are built by adventurers, for adventurers. We believe that every adventurer needs to know where to go, to know where they stand, and to be able to share their experiences.
About onX
Careers

iOS App Store

Android App Store

© 2026 onX Maps, Inc. Terms·Privacy