MUmmy Mountain

Other routes I've climbed on Mummy Mountain: 
Category: Colorado (RMNP)Summit Elev: 13,425 ft (route tops out lower than summit)Rock Type: Granite
Date: June 11-12, 2021 (Fri-Sat)Trip Report #: 469Partner: Nate Arganbright

Route: "Alien Rollout" (5.9, 6p, first ascent)

A six-pitch first ascent while exploring an unclimbed section of rock in RMNP.

Intro

Mummy Mountain is located in the northern reaches of Rocky Mountain National Park. The guidebook shows no climbing, despite the fact that the entire south slope is studded with 100-500' high buttresses of granite. Nate had noticed this area in 2012, had put up a few single pitch routes in 2013 and a four-pitch route in 2014. In June 2021, he encouraged me to join as we returned to see if the area had potential for more climbing. 

We had planned to spend the weekend up there and explore and climb for both days, and sleep at a great bivy location we had identified. On Saturday morning as we were waiting for the sun to come around the ridge and warm the rock, we spotted a cool looking tower with a gang plank feature high on the south slopes, and figured that climbing up to and to the top of that would be a good objective of the day. So up we went. To get to the base of the tower, we climbed six pitches of corner systems and featured rock, ranging in difficulty from 5.6-5.9. We saw no evidence that these pitches had been climbed before. Our seventh pitch was to be the tower, which looked pretty good from below. But soon after Nate started up his lead, he realized that the rock was quite friable and there were several hollow-seeming flakes—so he made the safe decision to bail. We scrambled back to camp from here.

Back at camp, we decided we were a bit nonplussed with the rock quality and the complex terrain we had encountered that day. There are clearly sections of good climbing up there, but perhaps too few and far between or with too long an approach to really be worth it. We decided to head out a day early and climb elsewhere (Astro Tower we decided later) Sunday.

In any case, it was an enjoyable overnight trip with a six-pitch first ascent with several stretches of good climbing. We may or may not come back to explore more of the craggy terrain on the south slopes of Mummy Mountain. This page gives a trip report for our exploratory adventure. We called the route "Alien Rollout".

July 2022 Update: Over 4th of July weekend 2022, Nate and I returned to explore some more rock on the south side of Mummy. On this trip we camped for two nights at Lawn Lake, and also did some fishing and exploring and summited Mummy Mountain. Click the link for a trip report.

Route Overlay

Pitch-by-Pitch Photos

Approach

2nd

Start at the Lawn Lake trailhead. Lawn Lake is reached in about 6.3 miles and 2,500 feet on a good trail. From Lawn Lake hoof it uphill to the base of the crag. There is a backcountry campsite at Lawn Lake (if you are lucky enough to get a reservation) or you can bivy (with a permit) above the lake.

Hiking in.
Hiking trail to Lawn Lake beside Roaring River.
Impressive undercut slopes beside Roaring River.
Impressive undercut slopes beside Roaring River.
South slopes of Mummy Mountain above.
Zooming in. Yeah, that looks like it has potential....
Approaching bivy site.
Bivy site. Our route climbed the buttress behind in the photo.
Big-horned sheep skull and horns.
The closest running water was about 10 minutes below us, but a snowfield beside camp gave us an unlimited (although slow) supply if we melted snow in a black garbage bag while we were out climbing.
Nate's dinners always look and taste great.

Pitch 1

5.9, 100'

Left-facing corner system.

Looking up the start of Pitch 1 from the base of the route.

Pitch 2

5.6, 40'

Move the belay up and left to the base of a better left-facing corner to the left.

Nate leading Pitch 2.

Pitch 3

5.9, 90'

Left-facing corner system. Probably the best pitch on the route.

Nate leading Pitch 3.
Some nice splitters in the right wall.

Pitch 4

5.6, 100'

Climb up on featured moderate terrain.

Looking up the start of Pitch 4.

Pitch 5

5.8, 90'

Climb the featured face near the arete and continue up a corner above. This is probably the second best pitch on the route (second to the Pitch 3 corner). You can take this pitch all the way to the top of a subtower which you can scramble off the backside.

Fun climbing ahead. This was one of my favorite stretches of climbing on the route.

Pitch 6

5.8, 130'

Move the belay a couple of hundred feet to the right. Climb the right-facing corner system to a crack.

Looking up the pitch.

End of Route

This route could probably be continued several more pitches upward. Our goal was to climb to the top of an obvious tower with a cool gangplank feature that we had spotted from below. This tower was directly above our belay at the top of Pitch 6. We started up the tower for Pitch 7, but the rock turned out to be a lot more friable than it looked, with some giant flakes and blocks, so we bailed off (left a sling and biner on a horn). We descended from here.

The tower we had hoped to climb. The rock in this photo looks better than it actually is.
Side view of the tower with its cool gangplank feature. The gangplank was actually a portion of rock that had sheared off, giving some indication of the instability of this rock here.
View out towards Lawn Lake and Mt. Fairchild.

Descent

Scramble. A bit loose and wandery but you can get down keeping it 3rd class.

Descent terrain. 
How did all these chocolate balls get up here?
A baby big-horned sheep....hmm, that's why those balls didn't taste like chocolate.

previous and next adventures