Quick Stats: 14.2 Miles & 6,067′ gain over 3 summits across 2 days from Mosquito Flat Trailhead.
A while back I came out to Rock Creek with the intention of doing a whole lot of peakbagging, but due to avalanche risk and poor snow conditions ended up scrubbing the whole trip just when it got started. (Read about it here.)
I knew I wanted to come back in the summer when it was dried out, and it was finally time to try and reach the summits that surround Ruby Lake in one adventure. Frankie and I got a permit for Mono Pass, and off we were with a pretty crazy itinerary over 3 days in the High Sierra.
Mount Starr & Mono Pass Peak
We arrived at Mosquito Flat late the night before and dirtbagged there to help us acclimatize since it’s the highest trailhead. After a relaxing morning, we set out with all of our gear with the plan of setting camp at Ruby Lake, then attempting Mount Starr and Mono Pass Peak.
The hike in to Ruby Lake was beautiful! I have a soft spot for Rock Creek because my first adventure in the Sierra Nevada was my climb of Mount Abbot via the NE Couloir from Mosquito Flat; but it is also a gorgeous area. Making our way through here when it was dry was easy, in stark contrast to my trip here in March which was very rough. It didn’t take us long to get to Ruby Lake and get our camp set. This would be a fantastic staging point for a climb of Mount Starr, Mono Pass Peak, Ruby Peak, Lookout Peak, and even some nearby monsters like Mount Mills and Mount Abbot.
After lunch at camp, we set out for Mount Starr and possibly Mono Pass Peak as well. We followed the Mono Pass Trail until we got to the chute where I had turned back in March. Unsure of what the start of the South Ridge looked like but armed with plenty of beta on this chute to the ridge, we opted to do a mix of scrambling and scree slogging to gain the South Ridge from this point. We would later learn this was dumb.
There were many opportunities for spicy scrambling in the chute, but it was mostly a scree slog until we got to the top of the ridge, which is more of a sweeping plateau with a nice little bump at the crest. Wanting to maximize the fun, we stayed as high on the ridge as possible rather that slogging through more scree and 2nd class nonsense.
Getting closer toward the summit you find a more sustained scrambling experience with more enjoyable opportunities to spice things up here and there. Frankie and I were moving fantastically well, and felt like we would be able to reach all of our objectives this weekend with how we were doing already– Day 1 is usually rough, but we were crushing it at this point. When we got to the summit we had ample to time to relax and take photos before another party arrived at the top as well. Two guys took the South Ridge the entire way (as opposed to the chute to the ridge), and informed us that we “missed out on the candy” as the start of the ridge is some really fun scrambling. We would later learn that they were absolutely correct.
After a bit we started down the North Slope toward the Mono Pass Trail and Mono Pass Peak. Me being the peakbagger between the two was interested in trying to bag Mono Pass Peak on the way back to camp, but Frankie seemed unsure as it’s a simple trekking peak and it looked like a whole lot of scree (or as we say: (a whole lot of bullshit”).
Part way down the slope we separated and I bolted across the gulley between the two mountains and made my way as quickly as possible toward a second summit for the day. What looked like loose scree from afar was actually not too bad. It wasn’t a hard packed trail, but it wasn’t terribly loose, and faint use trails crisscrossed around helping to guide me a little bit.
Before I knew it I was on the top of Mono Pass Peak looking out South at the beautiful Eastern Sierra. I wanted to take more time to relax, but I was also interested in getting back to camp with plenty of daylight, so promptly got to scree skiing down toward the Mono Pass Trail. While the slope wasn’t loose enough to make more for a miserable ascent, it was just loose enough for a rapid scree ski descent. Between the two mountains I was back on the Mono Pass Trail and started making my way down toward camp.
When I rounded the corner and saw the beginning of Mount Starr’s South Ridge, I was legitimately pissed off that I didn’t trust in the route description I had read to take that the whole way. Another time.
Frankie made good time back to camp and it wasn’t until there that I met up with her. We had a fantastic first day, and were planning out Day 2 of our 3 day adventure!
Peakbagger (dot) com Entry for Mount Starr from 8/25/2022
Ruby Peak
Our plan for the remainder of the trip was Ruby Peak, Lookout Peak, and then maybe Mount Mills via the East Couloir. That East Couloir is pretty chossy scrambling when it’s thawed out, so most people opt to do it as a winter climb. We still weren’t sure of what Day 3 would bring, but we decided that Ruby Peak was our main objective for Day 2 with Lookout Peak as a side quest.
We got an early start toward Ruby Peak, and knew that we were planning to scramble the entire East Ridge. I had read about this route long ago– a mix of 3rd and 4th class scrambling with a brief section where it cliffs out and you can get yourself stuck, it always sounded like something unbelievably exciting to do. . .
It didn’t disappoint. Crossing the stream the flows down and feeds Ruby Lake, we caught the ridge from where it originates and immediately had some satisfying 3rd class scrambling. We knew that this day was devoted to Ruby Peak, and we also knew that Lookout Mountain was really low on our priority list; so we opted for the fun lines as much as possible and stopped frequently early on to snap photos. The beginning portion of the ridge has sections of brush you have to scramble around before it clears up into a gorgeous exposed ridge of granite that sent me over the moon. We were getting later in the morning and moving well, but still had a long way to go. Exposed 4th class scrambling takes a long time, and that’s what we mostly found along the way. (Side note: I know the distinction between 3rd and 4th is hazy, but the line we took most of the way is hard to describe as anything below 4th class).
We continued on through a lot more sketchy scrambling and both agreed that this was more satisfying than Mount Russell. The moves required, the level of exposure, and the easy approach meant I would repeat this before I would repeat Russell, and that’s saying something. After a while it became a joke between us about when this would lighten up into some simpler 3rd class scrambling, and we were usually met with something crazy as soon as we brought this up– like the time we popped up from an exposed chimney only to see an exposed crack to follow. “Babe. That’s technical,” Frankie exclaimed with a laugh. I couldn’t disagree, but I was also having the time of my life and planned to summit.
We continued along the exposed ridge, but eventually decided that taking the most difficult lines that offered maximum exposure was slowing us down; and we should probably focus on the summit for a while. Part of the reason for making that decision was our new and improved updated itinerary. Rather than go climb a choosy Couloir to the summit of a 13er, why not go attempt Tumanguya (Mount Whitney) again tomorrow? Lookout Peak was now out for Frankie and was a maybe for me– We wanted to summit, take a faster line down from Ruby Peak, and then break camp and dirtbag over at the Portal.
Finally we got to the top of the East Ridge, which spits you out a few meters South of the summit. I could see a large summit block, and at the base of it was the summit register.
I’m not a purist in a lot of respects, but I do also feel like you need to actually reach the summit of a mountain to say you climbed it. I played around with an exposed line up the summit block from the South, and then found a really simple line on the North aspect of it. Frankie also got up to the true summit, but we didn’t feel like there was enough room for both of our bums so had out summit snacks near the top of the East Ridge.
After a long day of heightened adrenaline and exertion, we were ready to make our way down. While we were on top of the ridge we could see a series of chutes on the SE face that looked like better descent routes than retracing our steps. I began the downclimb ahead of Frankie to scout for a good line down. We followed this sort of routine for about a third of the downclimb– I would scout ahead a bit, pick the line (which usually involved a mix scrambling and a little scree skiing), and then wait so we could regroup and keep on moving our way down the mountain. Our goal was to get far enough down these chutes that we could reach a sort of plateau on the Eastern aspect of the mountain that we had seen on the way up, which we could then use to scree ski down to the little marsh between Ruby Lake and Mills Lake.
It was slow going, but this worked and we were on our way back to Ruby Lake. When we reached the saddle between Lookout Peak and Ruby Peak, I made the decision that I’d bag Lookout Peak another day. I offered to carry all of the gear between us for the next day’s adventure, so I wanted to make sure that I had as much as energy as possible for as ascent that would be between 9 and 12 miles with over 6,000′ of gain. I went ahead of Frankie and started to break camp before she arrived so that we could maximize the amount of time we had to sleep. I was mostly packed when she arrived, and then off we went toward Mosquito Flat where Alyx patiently waited to whisk us off on another wacky adventure.
To be continued. . .