words by insatiable and images by adamame

How much fun can you pack into a week? Adam and I set off to find out.



The big storms of October had us hoping for winter ski touring and we had 2 weeks of food and booze waiting for us in the Tuolumne Meadows cache. But this was a record breaking drought year and we drove over Tioga in January, gazing forlornly at the frozen brown meadow and hopeful buds on aspens.

Once we abandoned our hopes and plans we realized that a whole world of frozen wonder was waiting for us up there if only we could let go of our expectations and learn to love what we found.


Yvon Chouinard says that speed is safety. Maybe, but my own personal motto is “slow is happy.” Especially in January at 10,000 ft, when you have just 9 hours of daylight and it freezes hard every night. With our addiction to places high and wild, no lowland climbing was going to satisfy us but we had too dial our ambitions way back for a winter tour.


So we set our sights on Mt. Emerson, rising 13,223 feet almost directly out of Loch Leven, that delightful lake perched on a shelf at 10,700 ft. For years trusted climbing partners had been urging me to climb the SE Face and the stars aligned for the time to be… January. Though the mountain is frequently climbed in a day from North Lake, Adam and I are happiest when we sleep out under the stars on the hard ground, so we packed four days of food, the wilderness writings of John Muir, a back country kite, 2 hockey sticks and a puck and set off around noon.



Our first morning dawned frosty and brilliant and we had a lazy morning of futzing around camp before deciding the day was too windy for a decent alpine climb. Hockey sticks and kite accompanied us over Paiute Pass into Humphrey’s Basin, where we devoted hours to comparing the relative merits of every lake we saw for hockey and kite flying. All of the lakes were solid, many of them pitted and scarred with wind-raised ridges and deep fissures where freeze and thaw patterns had worked their magic. Some lakes had a hockey obstacle course with rocks and broken mounds of ice poking through the surface. Some were surface thawing and re-freezing each night, creating a glassy surface for us to slide around. All were lovely.








We straggled into camp only moments before total darkness descended, tired, cold and slightly dehydrated. The winter alpenglow set a nameless peak across from our tent on fire and we vowed to return and climb it sometime when the fact that it faces north didn’t have such dire consequences. Evening camp chores took up too little time and soon we were facing the hardest part of every winter campers’ day, that moment when you slide into the warmth of your down cocoon and realize you will be there for the next 14 hours minimum. Whiskey and John Muir kept us company and we took turns reading out loud to each other until drowsiness beckoned and we slipped into cozy sleep.




We were still awake before dawn the next morning, to watch the transformation from dark to light dance across the sky. From the warmth of our nest it was difficult to muster the motivation to climb a chilly peak, but John Muir’s recollection of his encounter with Ralph Waldo got us sufficiently stoked and we bravely emerged to pack our things and prepare for an alpine ascent. We left camp at 9 AM.


The approach from our camp involved a descent of almost a thousand feet, and then a slog up a field of steep talus and shrapnel, which Adam led with grace and ease. I fretted the whole way, wondering if I was healed enough from my illness to climb a big mountain with so little margin for error. If we miscalculated or were moving slower than anticipated, we would be forced to bivvy out in freezing temperatures. Adam expressed some concern too, as we craned our necks following the granite hulk of Mt. Emerson.



The first pitch is the only technical one, and I had dreams of solo-ing, since it is only a 5.4. But Adam is the leader and I trust him implicitly. After we arrived at the base of the climb and gazed up at the first corner/crack system Adam looked at me and said “We are definitely roping up.” As soon as our hands and feet began playing with solid granite, all fear and anxiety fled and we started chatting and laughing our way up.



After that first pitch we took the rope off and began navigating solid blocks of 3rd and 4th class climbing, never frightening but always requiring careful attention. Scramble, place foot carefully, mantle, chimney, off-width, face climb, this climb is like an all-you-can-climb buffet with endless variety, a yoga class on solid rock that goes on for 2500 vertical feet, allowing you to stretch and strengthen and forcing you to focus attention with every move. The Southeast exposure meant we were in full, albeit weak, sun for most of the day, with some brief shady moments when we ducked into wide gullies.




We navigated exactly one section of rotten sugar snow, which Adam rocked in his hiking boots and I groveled in my climbing shoes. Note to self: sticky rubber does not adhere to snow. After what seemed like endless solid fun scrambling we emerged onto a knife ridge and faced the last several hundred feet of 4th class climbing to the summit which we were able to glimpse for the first time that day.



We topped out around 2 PM and hurried through our summit rituals: backgammon, food, perusal of the register. Adam kicked my butt in the backgammon game, but I still lead the summit tournament. We scarfed food and read choice bits of the register and friends entries from years ago to each other. One other party had climbed the route that year, but Alex Honnold climbed it exactly two weeks prior, noting “I don’t even know what mountain this is, but it was a lovely hike from North Lake.”


A week earlier, Adam ran up the East Ridge of Humphrey’s, which Muir had named Mt. Emerson before he realized it already had a name and graced the current Mt. Emerson with the pioneering conservationists’ name. On top of Humphrey’s, barely a week into 2012, Adam found that he was the second person of the year to climb that mountain. Alex was the first, again commenting on the lovely hike from North Lake, and what a suitable rest day from bouldering he had.



The descent from Emerson was one of those steep loose rocky chutes that are partly fun because you can take a step that slides to 7 feet, but partly sketch because if you lose your footing you are going to hit your head on a boulder. We kept a steady pace and again managed to emerge at our tent about 15 minutes before complete blackness. We melted some snow, cooked some food, crawled into bed and giggled until sleep enfolded us in blessed blackness.




The next morning was devoted to hanging around and loafing. Adam made an incredible piece of artwork featuring that nameless peak we will climb next year. I melted snow and sang and worked on a scarf for my mom. We read some more John Muir and packed up and began our descent. By this time we had worked out that the trail was difficult travel, consisting of many frozen rivulets, so we marched straight down the North Fork of Bishop Creek, walking over the lakes and gawking frequently at the psychedelic formations created by so much frozen water in so many different cascading pooling tumbling forms.






The drive was dominated by food fantasies which we fulfilled in the company of a dear friend at the Thai restaurant by the Bishop airport. We spent the night with another friend, loaded up at the Great Basin Bakery the next morning and departed for some Buttermilking.



Despite the fact that I have done Smoke’s rock course five times and Adam has done it once, neither one of us could remember exactly where it went, nor did we much care to figure it out. We just wanted to go exploring and scrambling and climbing in the Buttermilk, so we chimneyed and face climbed and leapt and groveled and grunted our way among the patina and crumble, occasionally busting out the string and perfecting the bowline on a coil.



Deep in one nameless chimney Adam found a cache of rodent bones; some raptor obviously dragged its prey back into the recesses to devour. We gawked at the delicate jawbones and vertebrae and Adam fond a little leg bone which fit perfectly in my ear. So now I have an earring that reminds me of the Buttermilk and awesome Adam, and he got to take me jewelry shopping without ever whipping out his credit card.



As we crested a ridge we spied a gathering of about 15 people in down jackets standing around chatting and filming a slim figure in a bright green t-shirt clinging to an improbable boulder face. “I knew it,” Adam told me “That’s Alex Hunnold.” So we rambled over and chatted up Alex’s retinue, marveling at the pile of bouldering pads 10 ft tall and the seemingly featureless face Alex was cruising. I guess that guy is hot sh#t, but my sweetie is hotter, if you asked me.




After hours of rambling and scrambling, there was nothing to do but head home. We stopped at the Green Church hot springs, where a couple in the tub told us they’d seen us in the Buttermilk, where they’d gone to search for Smoke Blanchard’s rock course, which they’d read about in Ascent magazine. So we talked Sierra history and mountains until we were par-boiled and headed into Mammoth for some beer and more Thai food.

The wind was kicking up and we felt pulled to cross Tioga pass before any more trees blew down. This allowed for exploration of Tenaya Lake in the darkest night. With the ice so smooth and the night so black, we shuffled across the lake, losing all sense of perception and movement until the biting wind forced a retreat.

Adam’s friend Andy works for NatureBridge and invited us to stay at Crane Flat, so we enjoyed tea and a heated cabin and were able to stay awake for many hours past sunset, for the first time in days. Before blazing back to the coast we climbed up to Sierra Point for the broad vistas of waterfalls and the valley and more Sierra talk before finally climbing into the car and heading west, west, west, crying “Whee! Whee!” all the way home.



some more images of ice.