Getting off Mescalito

Any beta for getting off Mescalito? We're looking at scrambling/rapping to the top of CITH. Straightforward or just plan on flailing around until we find it?

From the top of Mescalito, it is semi-straightforward to return via the south fork. Go west to the notch, then head down to the south. if you stay to the right (west) you can go down progressively more interesting slabs and chimney/gullies. Eventually a single rope rappel from a small tree takes you to the brushy hillside just above the streambed. I haven't found a way to avoid that final rappel...

You can get down on the north side with no rappels, but it is not entirely obvious. If you're interested in those details, let me know and I will write them out.

I've summited Mescalito twice now, both times by way of climbing Cat in the Hat. After the regular route ends there is a lot of scrambling before you reach the final 5.7 summit pitch. The final pitch is reasonable but getting there via the scrambling route involves pretty intense routefinding. There's good beta in Larry's book.

All that said, both times I've descended by reversing the route. The final pitch has an interesting bolt setup, the down-scrambling is marginal, but the regular route rappels go fast. If you're real good, you can rap the whole thing with a single 60. I believe this is the fastest way to go.

The walk off the back that Larry describes is faster and pretty easy but maybe not as straightforward if you were in the dark. With all the rappels on the cat in the hat and the pain in the but scrambling back down the traditional raps it makes that descent alot longer despite being more direct.

Here's a shot of the north side of Mescalito.

redrocksguidebook.com/forum…

The south side descent that Larry describes starts from the obvious low point in the ridge. The upper route in the photo is the least technical way off the peak, but not the fastest. Overall, if you are comfortable with some easy but very exposed down climbing, going back down CITH is going to be the most straightforward option. A 70m rope is better than a 60m for this option, 60m leaves you a little short on the first rappel.

That's a pretty cool picture, might have taken one of those descents if I'd seen it sooner. We just got back from the climb and ended up taking the direct way down CITH though neither of us had climbed up past the standard part before. The chimney rappel wasn't too hard to find. We took some wrong turns coming down the slabs that ate time and wore us out more but that wasn't exactly unexpected. I think the biggest problem was that we decided to climb this August for some stupid reason.

Sounds like you had a more interesting time of it because you didn't have the full info!

For anyone else who may be looking for info however, there is some stuff at: mountainproject.com/v/nevad…