Mount McLoughlin Climbing notes shared by Mountain-Forecast users

  • October 02, 2018
    Randi from United States

    Summited Saturday 9/29 after following the weather for days. Took 3L water, drank 1.5... but it was cool enough for a puffy coat at the top while resting.

    Trail was dry and snow free to the top.
    One in our group keep falling behind. BRING A WHISTLE. This helped us call her back.

    Please note this is a climb! Nothing scary to fall from, but plenty of grabbing rocks to pull yourself up, especially in the last 1-2 miles.
    Once you hit the tree line, it can be hard to follow the route, as there are plenty of large rocks and multiple places people have looked for wrong-way shortcuts.

    Follow the spray-painted white dots, occasional pink arrows, pink flag confidence markers. If you see a cairn, you’re probably on the right path.

    Steer towards the ridge, get up on it, and climb your way along it to the summit.

    On the way down, you need to follow the ridge longer than you might think before hitting a clear trail. It’s easy to go down a rock field and entirely miss the trail.

    If you go on a weekday, the trail may be empty. It’s much “safer” for solo hiking in a Saturday or Sunday.

    Parking was hard to get to from highway 140, on a very bumpy 2.4 mile dirt road (last 1 mile was passable in 2wd if you go very slow). The road seems better coming from the k falls direction.

  • April 12, 2013
    Mike Huang from United States

    Date: April 12, 2013
    I did some initial assessments of the mountain. And checked the mountain-forcast.

    6000ft: 30mph wind and wind chill temp of 12 F
    9000ft: 50mph wind and wind chill temp of 1 F

    There is a good amount of snow on the ground at the trail head, some reaching 1 to 2 feet deep. I expect a lot more up top.
    If you do plan to climb during this time, be sure to wear layers and waterproof shell. It rained a lot while we were scouting. Also, talking with people from REI, they recommended crampons, pickaxe, avalanche gear, and snowshoes.

    We plan to do this with only snowshoes(rented from REI for $10/day) and a snowboard on our backs. we will only be using our cellphones as GPSes with an App called GPS navigator. It provides us with longitude and latitude information and also waypoint locations. This way, we can wander a little off track and navigate the backcountries while snowboarding. We will also be noting everything on paper and also a compass so we have a backup method in case batteries fail. Call Arctan calculations will probably be done in our head to get an approximate heading.