08_2014 Sierra fun, part 3: Mt. Conness, Mt. Emerson

For the 3rd and final blog about the Sierra trip, I’ll highlight ascents of the North Ridge of Mount Conness and the Southeast Face of Mt. Emerson.  Both of these climbs are technically easy/moderate, but offer incredible position and fun climbing.

I started the approach to Mt. Conness from Saddlebag Lake at about 7:30am.  The approach winds it way up the beautiful Conness lakes valley for a few miles, then you do a somewhat nasty scree ascent up onto the ridge proper.  I came across one part of two going to climb the same route, but there were no other people, so it was nice and quiet!

A really pretty cascade on the approach hike.

The North Ridge of Mount Conness offers about 2000’ of quality ridge climbing with a very cool curving aspect to the ridge as you can see in the photos.  The weather was stable and sunny, but a little cool and windy, not an issue just crisp alpine conditions.

The climbing along the ridge is generally easy, but there is huge exposure off the ridge towards the Conness glacier, making for a memorable ascent. 

The arrow points to a party of two in front of me.  

Contemplating the exposure! :)

The “crux” of the route comes at a corner system about 2/3 of the way up the ridge where roped parties will rappel or unroped ascents down climb a 50’ section of 5.6.

After this steeper corner down climb, the majority of the climbing is 4th class or easy 5th class to the summit.

The view from the knife edge - looooong way down!

The views from the 12,648’ summit are really great in every direction.  Another great Sierra climb!

A four frame panorama from a couple hundred feet below the summit on the descent ridge.

Signing the summit register.

You can see the approach I took - it is marked by the yellow line in the photo.

After hanging out on the summit for a while, I started the descent across the plateau and then down into the valley which leads back to the Saddlebag lake road.  The descent takes a while, but was very quiet (no other people the entire way) and is also quite scenic.

It was about 7 hours car to car and after the climb, I went back to camp, grabbed a solar shower and ate more fish tacos at the Mobil station :)  Photo shows post-climbing anti-inflammatory items. :)

The final adventure of the Sierra trip was the southeast face of Mt. Emerson.  Mt. Emerson lies west of Bishop, near the north lake of Bishop Creek.  The outing starts with about one hour of on and off trail approach hiking to the base of the route.

The pink line shows basically the entire route up Mt. Emerson which is approximately 3,000 feet.

The start of the route is quite obvious as it follows a black streaked chimney/corner system for about the first 1000’.  (see pink line). After that, fairly obvious gullies and slabs lead another 1500’ or so to the final series of knife edged ridge to the summit.

The climbing on this route was pretty cool, more fun than expected.  Again, I saw no other people once I left the main trail for the entire ascent/descent – amazing.  If this peak were in Colorado and as accessible, it would be packed with peak scramblers!

Another surprise the climb provided was length – this gully and ridge climb is much longer than it appears.

Perhaps the coolest thing about this climb is the final knife edge ridge to the summit.  This ridge is quite spectacular and has tremendous exposure on both sides at times – very cool!

Part of the long and dramatic knife edge ridge that leads to the summit.

Straddling the pointy summit of Mt. Emerson. The summit of Mt. Emerson is 13,225’.

A five frame panorama from the summit. Quite a view!

After enjoying the summit, you have to negotiate 2000+ feet of loose talus and scree to get you down to the lake, but after that it’s a pretty quick jaunt on good trail back to the parking area.

It was about 6 hours round trip and after arriving back at my car, I took a nice bath in a pool of Bishop creek, packed up and started the long drive back to Boulder.  It was a great trip with excellent weather overall and lots of great climbing adventures!  I love the high Sierra.