Mount Morgan (South)

This was a harrowing climb--five miles each way was no problem, and as you can see in the photo, it was a beautiful morning. But by the time we had reached the ridge running right to left, it was clouding up. We could see the top--we thought--(just above the wye-shaped snow chute) and pushed on against our better judgement. We reached the summit nearly an hour later to fine a gigantic storm cloud bearing down on us from the other side. Within two minutes visibility was down to 10 feet. We began our descent and had just cleared the darker rock at the summit when lightning began to strike the ridge. We dropped off the ridge and sat it out. 45 minutes later our hair had stopped popping, but the entire mountain was under 6 inches of snow--and the visibility was still under 25 feet. The two of us cast about for the right direction but were fearful that the steep drop visible in this photo was in fact the one on the far side. Finally realizing that it was necessary to go back up before going down, we caught a break in the clouds, reoriented, and shortly dropped out of the soup. It still took much longer to boulder down because of the snow, and there was nearly a foot at the lake in the photo--with the trail completely hidden. Pushing on by instinct, we eventually dropped below the freeze line to return to the car. For the first and only time in my life, I bagged a trip early, and we drove down to Tom's place for a steak dinner. After a week of rain and snow, we chose to NOT go over Mono Pass and into the Pioneer Basin for three more nights of peakbagging.