Mount Emerson SE Face Route Piute Pass

Mount Emerson is a relatively accessible mountain on the Sierra Peak Section list located off to the north of Loch Leven as you climb Piute Pass. I climbed it years ago via the standard 2nd / 3rd class route on my way to climb Pilot Knob and Four Gables and I remember at the time looking at the description of the 5.4 technical route and looking down at what looked like a very gnarly ridge. Since I generally prefer the overall experience of backpacking in the Sierra over shorter day hikes it's sat there on my list of things to do eventually.

Then this weekend rolled around and Jen and I were looking for something interesting to do after coming off the San Juan Islands paddle trip on Wednesday. I'd flown back into town Thursday morning to work for two days while Jen was driving back from Seattle and would be passing by the Eastern Sierra. We didn't feel up to planning anything too involved and hit upon the idea of knocking out two easier technical alpine climbs which turned into Crystal Crag Saturday and this on Sunday.

The route description for Emmerson lists it as a 5.4 but I would caution against underestimating the difficulty. This is an alpine route and while the pitches aren't incredibly difficult they are awkward in places and the anchor options are very limited. I know of one bailout and one major accident that happened up there and after having done it myself now I can understand a little better what might have happened. In addition once you reach the ridge there is an intense 4th class scramble that requires some not insignificant route finding. But the reward is an intense route up a peak that's fairly pedestrian by other routes.

After yesterday's jaunt up Crystal Crag we'd managed to catch up on at least a little sleep in one of the campground along the way to North Lake. Because we had been so run we did get up a bit later than I would have liked and we weren't hiking until 8:30 am.

The trailhead for Piute and Emmerson is North Lake which is one of the locations we use for WTC snow camp. This time of year you can drive all the way up along a well graded dirt road and there's a large backpacker lot just below the pack station.


After about 2.5 miles of easy trail we reached 10,600' and could see the start of our climb.


The first pitch was 5.4 but the moves were such we were happy to have the rope.  The second pitch we could have done unroped especially with the 3rd class bypass I found along the right side of the gully (vs the awkward thing Jen went up staying in the gully.)



The third pitch we were again happy to have the rope.


After those three -ish pitches the gully opened up into straightforward 2nd / 3rd class scrambling letting us stow the rope.



We moved up this part quite efficiently eventually gaining the ridge.


From here it got more interesting and we soon found ourselves in extended 4th class terrain.



Around 12,950' I climbed over to the west side of the ridge and after a series of increasingly uncomfortable 4th+ class moves decided that maybe this wasn't the route and had to backtrack.


Soon after we could see the peak up ahead.


We also had storms forming up in the distance and we heard thunder more than once.  Both Jen and I felt significantly better once we identified our descent route to the southwest and had a better bailout option than descending the SE face.


We made the summit at 3:30 pm feeling like we'd just done something intense. The register seemed to share our sentiments...




We grabbed our summit shots and decided to hussle down as we could see lighting and thunder over to the south.


Our descent route was the standard 2nd / 3rd class route I'd climbed up years before which was refreshingly straightforward.



It took us about an hour to descend back to the lake and from there the biggest thing we had to worry about was the mosquitos as we strolled back down the trail.


We reached the cars by 7:40 pm which meant there was just enough time to drive down to Bishop and enjoy a hearty post trip mexican food meal at our preferred haunt Las Palmas.

Everything was right with the world.  Until I checked Facebook.


It turned out the lightning storm we'd seen had triggered a fast growing brush fire down to the south which had shut down access to Whitney Portal. And it just so happened that was where we'd met and dropped of my Jeep friday night figuring that it was safer at a trailhead vs being left in town.

I couldn't resist informing my coworkers about the situation considering they'd gotten a text message from me just a few days before that I was stranded on an island in Washington Gilligan's Island style and might not make my flight home. Always something...

We made a hurried drive down to Lone Pine where we talked our way past a roadblock and were able to retrieve my vehicle. By this time the fire had spread even further and we could see it lighting up the mountain well before we reached Lone Pine.

After all that excitement we had a brutal drive home. Usually we can swap drivers back and forth but since we both had our vehicles there was no choice but to drink a lot of coffee and power through.

All in all a fun weekend and I was happy to have knocked out both Emerson and Crystal Crag. Next up after a luxurious if slightly frenzied 5 days in town was Temple Crag via South Fork of Big Pine Creek.