High Sierra Topix

Emigrant Wilderness 6/7 to 6/9

Camp Lake rated at a 3. All around you at night a couple retreated to the tent with dinner. In the day not so bad especially if you are moving.

June 7, 2014 off SR88 on the Margaret Lake Trail near Caples Lake, elevations 7600 to 8000 feet. Sunny breezy day. Highly glacial granitoid zone with considerable bedrock and lots of small stagnant ponds, many not on the topo. Between bedrock lodgepole pine forests often wet. Down by creek and any of the ponds level 3 moderate numbers of mosquitoes. Up on the exposed granite domes level 0. T-storms afternoon before so few mosquitoes at sunrise as they were still hunkered down wet and cold in vegetation while I was not about at dusk. Probably will get worse in next couple weeks.

At sunrise put on 100% DEET sparingly on face and hands while wearing usual jungle hat with full neck drape, light nylon shell, and full long pants, then never got bit. On my return from a 6 hour ramble, lots of groups heading out hiking at midday when the squeets were out. Virtually every person I saw was wearing only cotton t-shirts, shorts, and a baseball or floppy hat so yeah no doubt most of them did give bodily fluids to the flying vampires.

Welcome to HST, Jahcuzi and Shtinkypuppie. Thank you for providing these mosquito
reports to you fellow HST members.

Jahcuzi wrote:6/7 - 6/8

Mokelumne wilderness
Granite Lake / Grouse Lake - 0 (NONE!!!)

Odd. I saw someone on 6/7 who came from Grouse Lake and the said they were "horrible".
I never made it up to Granite

Just got back from a car-camping day-hiking trip.

Virginia Lakes (north- off Hwy 395) to the two upper lakes- windy, mosquitoes about 1-2

Walker River Canyon - no mosquiotes

Levitte Meadows - 1-2 (again it was windy)

Sliver Lake (off Hwy 88), 2-3 mostly AM and dusk down on the lakeshore

bdevlin wrote:

Jahcuzi wrote:6/7 - 6/8

Mokelumne wilderness
Granite Lake / Grouse Lake - 0 (NONE!!!)

Odd. I saw someone on 6/7 who came from Grouse Lake and the said they were "horrible".
I never made it up to Granite

Ran into the wilderness range on the way up and he said we were the first people up the trail this season, Blue Lakes road just opened last weekend. Regardless the conditions were perfect, a nice light breeze to keep all the bugs away! One of my best experiences with (or without) mosquitos.

High sierra trail june 2nd-8th. 0 to 1 everywhere. Kern Valley 2. This numbers makes you happy camper.

Woodchuck country 0-5 depending, on location and time and wind. Skeeters typically went to bed by 8 pm and did not wake up until 7 am. Did go thru about 2 oz of deet. During 7 day trip.

Mike

Emigrant Wilderness:

June 3rd Sheep Camp- 1
June 4-5 at Emigrant Lake-3
June 6 at Long Lake-4 (!)

More Emigrant:
June 7: Kennedy Meadows to below Sheep Camp = 1
June 8: Below Sheep Camp to Emigrant Meadow Lake = 1 (wind blowing at Emigrant Meadows Lake)
June 8: Snow Lake = 4
June 9: Snow Lake to Huckleberry Lake 4-5 (horrible)
June 9: Huckeberry Lake = 2 (wind was up over a lake with a long fetch)
June 10: Huckleberry to Letora Lake = 2
June 10: Letora through Cow Meadows 5 (descent into Mosquito Hell!)
June 10: Upper Buck Lake = 3 (Upper Buck is short and can't develop wind, tolerable)
June 11: Emigrant Lake = 4, until the wind came up, then 2.
June 12: Emigrant Lake to Middle and Upper Emigrant Lakes (wind was fierce and no bugs!) = 0
June 13: Middle Emigrant Lake to upper end of Relief Reservoir = 0 (wind continued and bugs grounded) Relief was indeed a relief.
June 14: Upper Relief to Kennedy Meadows TH = 0

Trail report to follow.