Mt McLoughlin from the east Mt McLoughlin from the east Date: A view from the east along route 140. The east ridge runs towards the viewer, the descent was just in front of the rock promontory on the right. This was actually taken Apr 26 on a shorter trip which did not include the summit.
What I took What was in the pack for a ski ascent with a lightweight bivy Date: This is everything that was in my pack. Clockwise from upper left: Safety/emergency items; misc essentials; warmer hat, gloves, goretex shell; down booties and bivy sack; no-cook foods; stove, hot drinks; pot with cup/spoon inside; 2 litres water; down parka. (Something was wrong with the new super light stove or the fuel, so that stuff was extraneous. And I only consumed the 2 bottles of water without melting or hunting down any additional.)
My Pack My pack for the trip Date: This is the complete pack I carried.
At the trailhead At the trailhead Date: Pack, skis with climbing skins, ski boots. Ready to go. (The 1984 Mazda truck was purchased for under $1000 in 2005 and still gets me to just about any trailhead I go to.)
Starting Out Starting Out Date: The trailhead. Snow was spotty for the first part and required packing the skis or putting them on and off to cross snow patches or melted out sections of volcanic rocks.
The Mountain The Mountain Date: View of the mountain from somewhere close to the trailhead. The day was still quite nice when I set out around 1pm or so. In the foreground is a section of volcanic rock typical of the area. These melt out early and are a pain to cross.
Old Growth Old Growth Date: Here and there in the lower elevation forests are very large trees. I'm not aware of any true old-growth forests in this area, just the occasional tree.
Interesting Tree Interesting Tree Date: I came across this tree as I got higher. Given it's location and shape I suspect maybe it was broken off by a large avalanche (large enough to have a long return period) and then grew several new forks. However, this is speculation and the supporting evidence isn't particularly strong.

This was actually taken Apr 26 on a shorter trip when I did not summit. I turned around to descend from about this point.
Treeline Treeline Date: As the trees thinned out and became smaller the grade became steeper. Clouds were building and blocking the sun, and the air was still cold. The result was very hard icy conditions for ascending on.
Ice Ice Date: You can see how the bright sun followed by cold and cloudy conditions resulted in areas of hard ice. In the end it was all I could do to traverse to the crest of the east ridge.
The Bivuoac (Bivy) The Bivuoac (Bivy) Date: This spot on the east ridge at about 8300' became my bivuoac spot for the night. There wasn't much point in trying to go higher in the icy conditions, and skiing back down would not have been fun either. It worked out fine, although I had envisioned something a bit more sheltered.

I put on the down parka and booties, wrapped the goretex shell over my legs, and got into the nylon bivy sack. What you can see in the photo is what I had, entirely.
Virgo Virgo with Mt Shasta in the background Date: The clouds built up enough for some precipitation. This was mentioned as virgo in the forecast (i.e. evaporating before reaching the ground). However, at 8300' there was some graupel for a while. I wrapped the tarp over me and took a nap to the sound of the graupel hitting it.
Mountain Lakes Wilderness Mountain Lakes Wilderness Date: While the clouds and virgo/graupel approached from the west it was still clear to the east. This is the Mountain Lakes Wilderness area, with Lake of the Woods in the foreground. The far side of the wilderness faces Klamath Falls, and I've begun an effort to track down the best of the abandoned forest roads to get up to South Pass on that side.
Sky Lakes, Crater Lake Sky Lakes, Crater Lake, and Mt Scott to the north Date: This is the view to the north from my bivy site on the ridge. The peaks in the foreground are probably in the Sky Lakes wilderness, which I still know little about. The highest peak on the right in the background is Mt Scott, on the east side of Crater Lake.
Pelican Butte, Fourmile Lake Pelican Butte, Fourmile Lake Date: Pelican Butte with Fourmile Lake (5748' asl) in the foreground. The lake is man-made and water is taken to the Rogue Valley on the west side via a canal to Fish Lake. There was a proposal for a ski area on Pelican Butte, but it had some fundamental flaws in addition to environmental hurdles.

The open sparsely treed area in the foreground is the base of the northeast bowl which I skied, and I ended up down in this area. The sparse small trees reflect the avalanche activity on this large, steep, open face.
The Northeast Bowl The Northeast Bowl Date: A view of the northeast bowl from the bivy on the east ridge. From the summit I dropped into the bowl and after a few turns traversed to the far side below the rock pinnacle for most of the descent.
To the Summit To the Summit Date: In the morning I ascended the ridge, keeping just to the climbers left. Then up the dome of a summit. I didn't start until late since things had frozen up hard and needed some sun, but conditions did become very good for ascending by mid-day.
Pelican Butte Pelican Butte, Fourmile Lake, Upper Klamath Lake Date: A view of Pelican Butte from near the summit. Upper Klamath Lake is behind and to its right.
The Summit The Summit Date: This is the actual summit. At the point where I took this photo I ran into a guy from Medford who had come up from somewhere near Rye Springs to the SW. He had started early, had an ice axe, and had given up on climbing skins part way up in favor of boot packing and carrying the skis.
Skier Descending the SW slopes Skier Descending the SW slopes Date: The skier/climber from Medford headed down the SW side the way he had come. The skiing didn't look nearly as good there, this aspect is exposed to a lot of wind and sun. At the bottom you can see the obvious avalanche run-out area that goes well into the forest. One of many on this cone shaped volcanic peak.
The Northeast Bowl The Northeast Bowl Date: This is the view back up the NE bowl after skiing it. My tracks are visible exiting the left side of the photo down low. Conditions were excellent.
Lower North Ridge Lower North Ridge Date: At the bottom of the NE bowl is a small ridge with the lower NW bowl behind it. I decided to make a short trip up this for the view and a few more turns.
North Side of Mt McLoughlin North Side of Mt McLoughlin Date: From the side of the low ridge on the north this is the view of the NE and NW bowls.
Panorama of North Side Panorama of North Side Date: This was stitched together (with Autostitch) from several photos. This side of the mountain is quite imposing and somewhat remote. The NW bowl is probably on a par with the NE for skiing. It's supposedly more remote to access, but it doesn't seem like it would be all that hard to ascend this low ridge to this point and traverse out around the east ridge.
A Few Slushy Turns A Few Slushy Turns Date: I descended back to the bottom of the NE bowl to traverse it and wrap around the east ridge. This slope gets a lot of sun and was pretty slushy, but still offered a few fun turns.
Wrapping Around the East Ridge Wrapping Around the East Ridge Date: I crossed the lower NE bowl and made a mildly climbing traverse of the east ridge down low in order to head back to the road. Unfortunately down low the ridge divides and behind the obvious ridge here was a steep slushy bowl that I ended up arduously traversing, somewhat nervously.
The Ski Out The Ski Out Date: After getting all the way back around the east ridge I was able to ski quite a long ways down this open avalanche path. Conditions weren't what they had been on the NE bowl, but were not too bad. I didn't have to deal with thicker forest too much until down low. A pretty good route out to finish with, really.
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