I had planned to solo the long East Arête (5.4) of Mt. Humphreys, but after an hour of driving—still miles from the trailhead and worried about beating up my faithful car—I turned back. Flipping through Croft’s The Good, The Great, and The Awesome, the North Arête of Crystal Crag caught my eye. The description of the “crystal pitch” sounded unique and the outing promised to be fun and relatively short, so I headed for Mammoth.

Crystal Crag, rising just under 10,400 feet, is visible from nearly anywhere in the Mammoth Lakes Basin. The rock is solid granite streaked with dikes and knobs. Several climbing options exist, with a few routes topping out on the true summit. Some good single-pitch climbing is found along its northeast base, but the classic line to the top is the North Arête.

The North Arête begins with either a chimney (5.6) or a direct corner (5.8). Above that, the climbing eases into 4th–low 5th class terrain depending on the variations. The route stays on the arête, threading through a dazzling band of giant, gleaming white quartz crystals—a worthy place to pause for photos—before finishing along the 3rd–4th class summit ridge. The descent follows the west face (3rd). The rock is featured and solid throughout, and quite enjoyable to climb.

This page includes a route overlay, approach map, time stats, and photos from my quick adventure up Crystal Crag. The entire adventure took under 3 hours and was so worth it to see those quartz crystals!