Mount McLoughlin
Sky Lakes Wilderness, Rogue River- Siskiyou National Forest
July 21st, 2012 Obsidians Climb
**Submit your photos/comments to romick1@comcast.net
| * Bob Kaminsky - Obsidians
Climb Leader * Dave Beardsley * Roy McCormick |
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Trip Report: I was happy to see clear skies forecast for this trip up
Oregon's sixth highest peak after thunderstorms forced the cancellation of my
planned Mount Baker Obsidians climb the previous weekend . Dave, Bob and I
enjoyed a sunset dinner of
cold sandwiches east of White City near Agate Lake and promptly headed to camp
at the trailhead where we were pleasantly surprised to find (1) no other campers and (2) very few
mosquitoes. A 0600 start up the trail got us ahead of most of the expected crowd
and we arrived at the 9,495' summit at 0930. Cloudless and calm, we enjoyed a
leisurely break on top and found quite a few fulgurites in the summit rocks. On
the way down we passed over a hundred folks headed up, including a group from
the Klamath Falls National Guard unit. We arrived back at the (now packed)
trailhead parking lot at 1320 and had an uneventful cruise home. Congratulations
to Bob on his first lead with the Obsidians.
** Please note that the target photos are large .jpg files (~2MB). Click on thumbnails for full- sized, unedited images **
Photo credits: (rk): Bob Kaminsky. All others are Roy McCormick (rm)
rm photos are not copywrited. Please feel free to save and use. (Right click... Save as...)
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| Gearing up at o'dark hundred (rk) | Signing in | First view of Lake of the Woods |
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| Mt Shasta | Bob headed up | Rock garden |
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| Dead Whitebark Pine | Penstemon | Looking up toward summit |
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| Last stretch | The top (9,495') | Success! (rk) |
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| Drying my feet off on warm rock (rk) |
Fulgurite is where lightning strikes the rock and melts the
surface http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgurite |
Fulgurite patterns were present all over the summit |
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| Our Leader | Looking down the east side | Another fulgurite pattern. This peak is quite the lightning rod! |
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| Foreground: The Watchman (left) & Llao Rock with Mt Thielsen behind it. The Three Sisters are in the far distance. | Part of a wall from the USFS fire lookout that was once on the summit. | There were lookouts on McLoughlin from 1917 until 1955. |
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| Interesting wood chunk on summit. Tree or part of the lookout? | Like most Cascade peaks, McLoughlin is a rubble pile. | Headed down... |
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Volcanic dike |
More Whitebark Krummholtz | Great patterns |
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| Looking back up the route | Here comes the National Guard. | Blue-Staining Bolete. Thanks for the id Dave! |
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| Summit Panorama | ||
