Climbing the Mission Mountains: McDonald Peak

McDonald peak is as challenging of a climb as you can read on any trip report. A combination of bushwhacking, steep off trail, thigh high creek ford, and snow climb requiring ice axe an crampons. We camped at the beautiful cliff lake, then made an early start to climb McDonald via the south slope. 40 mph wind gusts made the snow quite firm on the climb up, but softened up for a pleasurable boot ski on the way down. We made the mistake of taking the old trail down to island lake, leading to a horrendous bushwhack to heart lake. Was it mentally and physically challenging? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes.

[@montana4939]

We can see the peak from our front yard and we wondered if anyone has made that venture, now we know . Beautiful just beautiful, thank you .

[@user-fr8ye2dg7z]

McDonald has been on my list since before I came across this video, and this certainly helps keep it firmly on the to-do pile! I love hitting the ultras when I can and I love real wilderness even more, regardless of elevation. Thanks for the vid; hopefully I can use it to convince some amigos to come take this one on with me sometime. :)

[@caseyparked]

Awesome video! Thinking about doing it soon. I'm surprised you didn't see any grizzlies haha

[@fintanmaguire8487]

Wow!