Mt. McLoughlin One Day, Grayback the Next

     Last Saturday at 8:40 am my friend Greg Stanko and I started up the five-mile trail to the top of Mt. McLoughlin, Medford's own Cascades peak. We would be ascending 4000 feet to the 9,459-foot summit.

    This balmy autumn day contrasted starkly with our attempt, two weeks earlier, when snow turned us back at about 8000 feet. Now, we couldn't have chosen a better day. I was in high spirits. I have lived in the Rogue Valley for almost half a century, and this would be my first time on top of McLoughlin.

    If I got there. I began to doubt that assumption as I climbed higher. After 3.2 miles, marked in white chalk on a rock, the trail turned nastily steep, and oh, my God! the rocks! I had been told the top part of the climb was boulder hopping, but that's not what it was. I've done boulder hopping. This was not jumping or hopping over big boulders but lugging the body up steep rocks, heaving the unwilling, heavy body from one rock up to the next one. Steep, on this trail, is steep.

Greg and me, on the ascent

    I began to have second thoughts about climbing Mt. McLoughlin on my ninetieth birthday.

    Then the trail turned not only steep but slippery with soil that was really only pulverized rock. Each step meant a slide backwards half that length.

The trail to the summit is up the edge on the right.

The altitude was affecting my breathing. On I slogged—or, rather, pulled and slipped and struggled. Greg, ahead of me, didn't seem to be having any difficulty. I envied him his long legs.

    And then we were on the top.

On top of Mt. McLoughlin

All the difficulty vanished, leaving only exhilaration. The view was expansive: Mt. Shasta white with snow, the Siskiyou Mountains, Mt. Thielsen sticking its pointed finger into the sky, Mt. Scot looming over an unseen Crater Lake—and the beautiful lakes below us: Fish Lake, Lake of the Woods, Fourmile Lake—my skiing country. Remnants of the snowfall that had turned us back two weeks earlier streaked down the sides of the peak below us.

    We were on the top for about an hour, along with about two dozen young people and three dogs. Everyone said, "What a beautiful day it is!"

    The way down went faster than the way up because every sliding step took us towards our goal rather than away from it. However, the slippery soil, especially on top of steeply slanted rocks, was so treacherous I fell several times. Even Greg went down a time or two. Finally we were on more solid and less steep ground, then under the trees again, where the walking should have been easier except by this time my feet were hurting so badly all I could think about was Greg's truck at the trailhead. A little over eight hours after we started, I sat down at a picnic table at the trailhead, took off my boots, and hobbled to the truck. 

    Greg very kindly said he thought that was one of the hardest climbs he's done—and he has been trekking in Nepal and has climbed Mt. Shasta and spent the night on top of Thielsen. He also kindly said we had made good time. It's true that all those people who had passed us on the trail were a lot younger, including the young man who was running this trail. 

    An Epsom salts bath when I got home revived my sore thighs and aching feet, but was I really going to hike up Grayback Mountain with Margaret Perrow tomorrow? What was I thinking, to have made those plans?

    But the next day I felt fine, walking felt normal, and the weather was again gorgeous so, sure, why not climb Grayback the day after climbing McLoughlin? 

    I know this trail well, so I was prepared for its steep beginnings. My legs were a little wobbly, but that soon wore off. At Windy Gap, we made our way off-trail up the spine of the mountain, through woods, then over rocks, kind of like clambering over rocks on Mt. McLoughlin except not as steep. My feet and thighs were doing fine. Three hours from the trailhead, we were sitting on top of Grayback Mountain, higher, at 7048 feet, than we could be on any mountain east of the Mississippi.

On top of Grayback. Mt. McLoughlin is the point on the horizon to my right.

Margaret at the summit

    We could see across the valley to the Cascade Range: Mt. Shasta, Lassen Peak, and, pointing into the horizon above the valley, Mt. McLoughlin. Yesterday, I thought, I was there. 

    Turning around, we were looking at the Siskiyous, plowing from the west into the Cascades at the point called the Klamath Knot. 

The Siskiyou Crest. Photo by Margaret Perrow.    

    It was a glorious two days. I wore out my boots, but my feet have completely recovered. I love my mountains. Maybe I'll do a repeat for my ninetieth birthday, after all.