As with many great faces in the Sierra Nevada, the north face of Mt. Emerson (13,210’) was first climbed by the illustrious outcast Norman Clyde, via the North Couloir (AI2 45° snow, 1926). To the right of the Clyde route is a quarter-mile-wide, 1,500-foot-tall face of granite ribs, snow ramps, and dead-end couloirs. Keenan Pope and I approached this face early on the morning of April 29.

We started up a right-leaning snow ramp a few hundred feet right of the North Couloir. We simul-soloed the slushy snow, then roped up for a couple of pitches of snow-covered slabs (M2). Next we simul-climbed a golden rock rib for several hundred feet (5.5). We continued to simul up a snow ramp heading back left, then I led an 80-foot, M4 pitch up diagonal cracks. As the sun fell behind the mountain and the temperature dropped, we simul-climbed more snow and easy mixed terrain, trending left.

My hands were wet and cold, so I dug spare gloves out of my pack, then fumbled and watched as a dry glove slid down the snow and out of view. I resigned myself to having one cold hand for the rest of the climb. Keenan led a poorly protected, awkward M3 pitch, from the top of which we simuled more snow to the west ridge of Emerson, about a quarter mile from the summit. Fourth-class climbing over and around towers brought us to the top shortly before sunset. We downclimbed the North Couloir, and I spotted my lost glove on the snow just a few yards from where we’d started that morning. I retrieved the glove and walked out by headlamp with two warm hands. We called our route Lost and Found (1,500’, 5.5 M4).

—Trevor Shumaker