Mt. Laurel, North east face
Early April on a Saturday in 2008, I went out to climb Mt. Laurel with Taylor and Danny, and couple of other Alpine climbers. Laurel Mountain is an 11,800′ peak just south of Mammoth Lakes. Mt. Laurel is a huge climb, involving 2 miles of technical climbing up the North East face. The route meanders through a confusing maze of vertical gullies, cliffs and false summits.
All the intel we had on Mt. Laurel was a short summary of the summer route up the North-East face with 1 B&W photo. The description of the route admitted that it is “just about as good as a ouija board”. After a short approach round the beautiful Convict Lake, we got to the snow gulley (around 10am) which was detailed in the route description. The initial climbing was relatively low angle (rated a 5.2 rock climb in the summer). With all the snow, it was a steep snow climb, which involved lots of step-kicking. You can see our route here: 
After three hours of tiring step-kicking, we got to the real technical bit, which was the crux (the hardest part) of the climb (shown here:http://picasaweb.google.com/rowantrollope/MtLaurelAscentApril2008/photo#5186681840892295730). This was a short section of technical mixed rock and ice — where we should have stopped to rope up and place protection, since a fall involved about 1,000 feet of exposure. Given the relatively easy nature of the crux, we all free soloed it with no rope. After the crux, the climbing got much steeper (http://picasaweb.google.com/rowantrollope/MtLaurelAscentApril2008/photo#5186681892431903298), and the snow got icy and hard. We roped up and alternatively kicked steps or front-pointed. This was much slower, but we all felt we were making good time, and we were safely roped together.
By 3pm, we’d exited the top of the steepest couloir (a gulley), shown here:http://picasaweb.google.com/rowantrollope/MtLaurelAscentApril2008/photo#5186681918201707090. We had arrived at some lower angle snow, which was unconsolidated. The going got much tougher here. While there was less exposure, every step involved sinking in, sometimes almost to your hips. This slowed us down dramatically, but by now, we could see what we thought was the final pitch. By 5:35pm we got to the end of the snow, and onto the final bit of rock, which we thought might lead us to the summit — unfortunately, it turned out that we’d taken a wrong turn, and had peaked out at 11,400 (just 400 feet from the true summit), but separated by a huge cliff and a thousand foot drop off. The views at the top were absolutely spectacular and we had a quick bite to eat while we discussed our predicament.
We realized we’d have to descent about 1,500 feet to get onto the right line. Given that it would be dark in an hour and a half, we discussed briefly, and decided that the only course of action was to down-climb the entire route. A bit scary for Taylor who’d never performed a steep snow descent. We debated roping up for the descent and determined it would be too slow and much too dangerous. Instead we decided to down-climb with no ropes — in this situation you just have to go slowly and don’t slip.
Our goal was to make it back to the crux before dark (where we knew we’d need to rappel, due to the steepness). The crux was in a steep couloir with exposed rock and ice about 10 feet wide in the middle, with steep rock walls on either side. I hustled and got there first to setup an anchor we could rappel from. At first, I placed a snow picket into the steep snow directly above the rock. It went in, but the snow wasn’t firm enough, and I decided I might be able to find better placements for Pitons in the side-walls of the couloir. As darkness fell, I scrambled around on the rock with my crampons on, using my axes to hold me to the walls. It was a bit precarious, but eventually I found a crack and in desperation pounded in a short Piton with my hammer. The piton went in about half-way, then stopped. I wouldn’t trust my life to that placement, so I found another crack, and this time hammered in a longer piton, which went all the way in. It felt very secure.
Taylor arrived, and I asked him to grab my pack and the pickets I’d placed higher on the snow. He gathered everything up and started to traverse across the ice towards me. About half way across the gully, he had to stop since it was too dangerous to continue the traverse encumbered with the ropes, pickets and two packs. I climbed back up to him to relieve him of the load, and we both completed the traverse to the other side of the couloir. At this point we both descended to the piton anchor we’d placed, and I clipped in — safe at last. Danny arrived a few minutes later with the other rope, and I quickly setup the first rappel.
I rappelled first to test my piton anchor placements. Slowly I put my full weight onto the rope and began to lower myself down. After a few feet of descent, the sketchy piton I’d worried about made a pinging sound and popped out! I dropped a couple feet onto the single remaining Piton, which thankfully held fast. Hanging in free air when one of your two Pitons pops out will get your heart beating! I looked up at Danny and Taylor whose eyes went wide. They inspected the remaining Piton and declared that it looked bomber, so I continued and the three of us finished the rappel with no incident.
At this point we all felt safer, but still hustled down the remaining slopes with headlamps on, and then the long hike out. We made it back to the car at 10:35pm. We were starving and dehydrated but we were in great spirits. Car to car we’d spent 13 hours climbing, and despite the false summit and the popping pitons, it was really quite fun.
Here are a few of the pictures I took while climbing:http://picasaweb.google.com/rowantrollope/MtLaurelAscentApril2008
