Crystal Crag North Arete Route Mammoth California

  • Updated: July 07, 2018
  • Post By: Matthew Hengst

July 7th, 2018
Crystal Crag (10,377') - North Arete 5.7 Route
4.15 miles, 1,700'

Thursday morning I'd just gotten back from a 5 day kayak touring trip up in Washington. So after two days back at work I found myself at another weekend trying to decide what to do.

If you're expecting me to say I stayed home and caught up on sleep you've probably not been reading this blog very long!

Instead it was off to the eastern sierra to meet Jen Blackie who had driven straight through from Seattle. I'd had just enough time to do laundry and load up the rock climbing gear in the Jeep for two days of alpine climbing starting with Crystal Crag in Mammoth.


Crystal Crag is rock tower that anyone who has been in the vicinity of Lake George will have noticed since it dominates the skyline above the parking lot.


Even from above it stands out as you can see from this view from Mammoth Crest last year.

I'd had it on my list to do for a while but since it's located so close to the trailhead it never seemed enough to commit an entire weekend to but at the same time too long to run up after coming out of a trip.

There are 3rd (-ish) and 5th class routes and it's been compared to Cathedral Peak when it comes to fun high quality climbs that don't require an extreme amount of climbing ability. We were aiming for the 5.7 North Arete Route which goes straight up the ridge you see in any of these pictures.

I left Orange County Friday night at 8 and drove up to the Whitney Portal trailhead where I dropped off the Jeep and hopped in with Jen for the rest of the drive to Mammoth.


We stayed at the usual bivy spot near the gate leading down to Reds Meadow and got hiking a little before 8:30 am.  Neither of us had had near enough sleep in the past few days but hey, it was time for adventure!


The start of the trail is on the Mammoth Crest trail at Lake George.


A few miles up there's a signed junction indicating Crystal Lake.  After dropping down and crossing the lake outlet we found a number of indistinct use trails and picked our way towards the base of the peak.


It was easy enough to find the base since it sticks up so dramatically.


The view from the base of the climb is spectacular with George, Mary, and Twin Lakes visible along with Mammoth Mountain in the distance.


There's a 5.7 and a 5.8 variation for the first pitch and we set up on the 5.7.

We started climbing about 9 am which turned out to be just in time.  While we were setting up two more groups arrived and I saw more folks dragging helmets and ropes hiking in as we climbed.

Jen led the first pitch with ease though she managed to place one Metolius cam in such a way I couldn't get it free even after 10+ minutes of low grade cursing and bloodied knuckles.






Three pitches of fun easy (-ish) climbing brought us up to the ridge where it turns into fun 3rd / 4th class.  We did some of it roped but you can scramble it free fairly easily.

We were on the summit a little before 1 pm and it's a bit anticlimactic after the ridge since it doesn't stick up that dramatically and it shares the same awesome view that we'd been blown away by for the last few hours.


After kicking back and enjoying a well earned snack we headed south from the summit and found a promising looking 2nd / 3rd class line to drop down.


There was a group of three that had caught up to us on the summit and tailed us down to the lake.



Crystal Lake is a beautiful spot but a bit too highly traveled for my taste.  Dayhikers were absolutely everywhere.


We made it back down to George Lake parking lot at 4 and found cars parked on every available scrap of dirt or pavement.  This was a bit of a shock since I've mostly been up here in October / November when there's almost no one around but that's summer in Mammoth for you.


Since we were in Mammoth and we'd quite clearly earned a beer we decided to drop by the Mammoth Brewing Company and partake in a flight or two. Similar to George the place was a zoo with the entire front area filled with people but fortunately you can just waltz inside and enjoy a beer while standing. (For the record the Summer Triple was amazing)

Next up on the agenda was a 5.4 route on Mount Emmerson so we drove down to Bishop grabbing a few supplies along the way for dinner before finding a spot at one of the campgrounds up near North Lake. 

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