back into the mountains - June 28 to July 2

This will be quite brief, but I hope to update it in a few days when I get more easy internet time.

I got another call and headed into the mountains. This time I headed in from N Lake up over Piute Pass. The first night it snowed a few inches and it blew a lot. In the morning it was still blowing around but I decided to get up and out anyway. I ticked off a number of smaller peaks in the 4 Gables area including what is apparently officially the 4 Gables peak as well as the more impressive peaks to the N and S. Then I moved camp closer to the next days objective - slow and frustrating with the soft afternoon snow - it is at least twice as fast with half the effort to walk on top of the snow in the morning.

The 3rd days objective was Mt Merriam (13,077'), Royce (13,280 ft), and possibly Feather Peak (>13,240 '). I managed all 3 and found a nice couloir for the descent from Feather that saved me a lot of tedious downclimbing. Once again the afternoon snow was a chore to pass. I think this was my longest day with over 4600' of vertical. Once again it snowed (and blew around) in the evening - just enough to make me pack up and hide in the bivy tent instead of drying stuff out.

For the 4th day I hiked back and climbed up Mt Humphreys (13, 986 ft) via the NW side - this had some exciting climbing - something about 4th classing past rappel anchors makes one feel both superior and nervous. From there I headed south towards the final objective.

my shadow as I hike back towards Humphreys

The 5th and last day I climbed Mt Emerson from the SW. There was some scrambling to start and a lot of talus up to the lower W summit, then I traversed and scrambled around a lot of ridge to the actual E summit (13,204 ft). This day was a lot warmer with almost no wind. I took the gully SE from the summit, I think this was a big mistake as it had a lot of loose scree and rock, and then pinched down and had some waterfalls and sketchy old snow. I was glad to have my crampons although I wasn't glad to be putting them on on a little ledge. I also had my full backpack with all my stuff. Finally I made it down to the main Piute Pass trail and back to the truck. Down at the trailhead there were a lot of mosquitoes.

I look out over Piute Pass from the SE shoulder of Mt Emerson

It was fun to recognize so many names in the summit registers. Some peaks are a lot more popular than others, with only a few ascents a year, others see many ascents each year.


Another dip in McGee Creek refreshed me, but I had to scrub and scrape the paste of dead skin and sunscreen off of my cheeks.


here is a link to a slightly more complete trip report of the Mount Humphreys Basin trip