TR: 5/20/17 - 5/21/17 Bloody Mountain and Mount Morrison
Posted: Tue May 23, 2017 7:35 am
This past weekend we went to climb Bloody Mountain, then camped at Convict Lake, and climbed Mount Morrison the next day.
Bloody took 11.5 hours, we started at 4am. We pretty much had to hike the entire Laurel Lakes road. It was very hard to drive on. I got about a quarter mile in and then quit. There was not much snow on the road till about 1/2 mile from the base of the couloir. The snow conditions were good for climbing in the couloir. We had a few small (but fast) rocks tumble down near us. There were four of us, and two felt very strongly that the rockfall in the couloir made glissading down a bad idea, so we hiked down the ridge of Bloody down towards Laurel Lakes. The ridge was pretty much a pile of dry talus.
Convict Lake Campground was pretty busy, but we found several walk-ins available.
We started at 5am for Morrison and it took 9 hours. We all agreed it was much harder than Bloody. There was some mixed climbing in the couloir, route finding, and sustained 45 degree angle, sometimes going up to 50 degrees. The snow conditions were not ideal. It was warm the night before so the snow got slushy pretty fast. There was no rockfall and not any other signs we could see of avalanche danger so we enjoyed a great glissade down. Everyone was elated and I was somewhat shocked that both peaks actually happened. Both days, the group was very focused.
Near the top of Bloody Couloir: https://goo.gl/photos/VL8oTajYv79PTT8q7
Top of Morrison: https://goo.gl/photos/9UpnzEZuuumShbqL9
Bloody took 11.5 hours, we started at 4am. We pretty much had to hike the entire Laurel Lakes road. It was very hard to drive on. I got about a quarter mile in and then quit. There was not much snow on the road till about 1/2 mile from the base of the couloir. The snow conditions were good for climbing in the couloir. We had a few small (but fast) rocks tumble down near us. There were four of us, and two felt very strongly that the rockfall in the couloir made glissading down a bad idea, so we hiked down the ridge of Bloody down towards Laurel Lakes. The ridge was pretty much a pile of dry talus.
Convict Lake Campground was pretty busy, but we found several walk-ins available.
We started at 5am for Morrison and it took 9 hours. We all agreed it was much harder than Bloody. There was some mixed climbing in the couloir, route finding, and sustained 45 degree angle, sometimes going up to 50 degrees. The snow conditions were not ideal. It was warm the night before so the snow got slushy pretty fast. There was no rockfall and not any other signs we could see of avalanche danger so we enjoyed a great glissade down. Everyone was elated and I was somewhat shocked that both peaks actually happened. Both days, the group was very focused.
Near the top of Bloody Couloir: https://goo.gl/photos/VL8oTajYv79PTT8q7
Top of Morrison: https://goo.gl/photos/9UpnzEZuuumShbqL9