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.

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

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.

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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.

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.

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Chris D

Sep 15, 2015

“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.”

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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!)

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

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

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

Skiing the Mendenhall Couloir above Convict Lake

Skiing the Mendenhall Couloir amidst colorful rock

Georgeous view from Convict Lake.

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.

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

Scrambling up Laurel Mountain. Photo by Dale Apgar.

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.

Snow covering the first 200 ft.
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June 23 2018

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)

Gang ascent
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6/23/2018

Looking North, we took this screen 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.

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

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.

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.

Taking the fun way down.

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

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

The gray limestone has the best friction.

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.

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

The start - 8 June 2018

Ryan low on the Northeast Gully of Laurel

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.

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

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

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.

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