Emerald Point - Sierra Nevada warm-up for USAlpin_Rise

After Alpin_Rise arrived in California, we (obviously) started talking about potential goals for a hike. His 3 wishes for this weeks Wednesday outing were: 1. to get some scrambling in, 2. not too much of an altitude difference and 3. if possible some snow for sliding down the mountain. Still being a California novice myself, the 3 wishes made me "sweat" a little bit, because I couldn't think of something right away. However, after some "research" I found something on Bob Burd's website which seemed like the perfect match for my Swiss friend: Emerald Point via it's South Ridge. If Bob Burd says "... we found some excellent class 3-4 climbing up the entire route, and even some class 5 stuff. It was scary fun without ropes - highly recommended", it has to be interesting. Well, it turned out to be exactly what Aplin_Rise wanted and in addition pushed my scrambling limits a tad further than I expected.

We start our hike at the parking lot of the Eagle Falls trail head (5$ day use parking fee). There we also fill out the (self-issued) wilderness permit for the "Desolation Wilderness". First we walk along the Eagle Falls trail for about a mile or so. Shortly before the trail crosses the river we leave the official path and follow path traces on the right side of the creek. We pass some boulder spots and at some point we decide to leave the trail and head north towards the rocks which lead up to the Emerald Point South Ridge. We encounter a few bushes, but it's not too bad to get to the "pure rock" and soon the fun begins.

Alpin_Rise soon starts to cheer ("juchzen") because he really likes what we find on the ridge: excellent granite scrambling with lots of chicken heads (= very good grips sticking out of the otherwise rather smooth rock). Whenever you need a grip there is one! Mostly climbing in the second degree and not too exposed, makes the ridge a lot of fun, but a few not so easy III-s can be found too, which makes it challenging for me. However, Alpin_Rise coaches me through the most difficult parts and eventually we make it all the way to the top.

Due to the rather windy conditions, we enjoy our lunch and the view to Lake Tahoe a little below the summit on the east side of the highest point. After almost an hour of rest, we then start our descent back to the car. In order to get there we first follow the ridge to the saddle NE of the summit (where we even encounter a few snow fields) and then find our way down the little valley in direction EES. Alpin_Rise studied the route from the summit and leads us down the mountain with almost no  "bush fights". At the bottom we find some path traces which take us to a paved road a little bit above Highway 89. From there we then follow the road back to our car.