TR Emigrant wilderness, Kennedy M up and around Upper Relief

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justm
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TR Emigrant wilderness, Kennedy M up and around Upper Relief

Post by justm »

I headed up last Friday morning from Kennedy Meadows to my first camp at Sheeps Meadow. It was very hot, which made for slow going. I've noticed it's real clean up there, many illegal campsites and fire rings are gone. Nice job trail crews and forest service !!! The next morning I was off to Emigrant lake, via Mosquito pass. I crossed paths with fellow HST member Venturefar. It was another very hot day, in the low 90s up there and very stagnant. Thunderstorms threatened at Emigrant lake, which was a relief from the heat. It rained about 30 drops.
I fished beautiful upper Buck lake the next day on my way to long lake. Mid day fishing was slow, but I had the lake to myself. There were plenty of mosquitos to join me on my hike to deer lake and some patchy snow ( which made for refreshing ice cold water in my bottle). I camped at beautiful long lake on Sunday and had the big lake to myself. I found a dead, and eaten, porcupine, and a bleached deer antler w/ top of skull. More dark threatening thunder clouds, but only a little rain. Lots of mosquitos. I had a long hike on Monday to lower relief valley. Didn't see a soul. More threatening thunderstorms. My Tuesday morning crossing of the combined Summit and Relief creek proved to be one of the most difficult stream crossings I've encountered. It was waist deep, ice cold and incredibly powerful. It took me 30 min. to figure out a way to get across. I made it across, but it was very dicey. It's easy to see how people die from such crossings ! This is a fantastic loop trip, with plenty of solitude, fishing and easy altitude gain and loss. I would not do this trip in the spring because of the extremely dangerous river crossing at the end !
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venturefar
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Re: TR Emigrant wilderness, Kennedy M up and around Upper Relief

Post by venturefar »

It was nice to meet you as well justm. Glad you had a nice trip.
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balzaccom
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Re: TR Emigrant wilderness, Kennedy M up and around Upper Relief

Post by balzaccom »

Just curious---how do you find out that the people you meet on the trail are from this forum? That topix (sic) doesn't seem to come up when we meet folks on the trail.

We have our own website, and hand out cards to some of the people we meet--but only after some conversation. And most of those conversations are pretty short.

We did have one memorable meeting with a group out of Kennedy Meadows...lovely chat....and when we handed them a card, they broke into big smiles and told us that our website had inspired them to make that trip. That was cool...
Check our our website: http://www.backpackthesierra.com/
Or just read a good mystery novel set in the Sierra; https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Falling-R ... 0984884963
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Tom_H
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Re: TR Emigrant wilderness, Kennedy M up and around Upper Relief

Post by Tom_H »

That's one of my favorite areas to hike. VentureFar, if you aren't tied up all summer with your JMT trip, would you be up for some more exploring in that area? I wouldn't mind having a partner.
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justm
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Re: TR Emigrant wilderness, Kennedy M up and around Upper Relief

Post by justm »

Venturefar has posted some pictures of himself with his fish he caught, that's how I recognized him. Balzaccom, I think I may have seen you once before a few years back at Bear lake. It was an early season trip and I was heading up to Granite lake via Bear lake. You'll were camped at the creek flowing into Bear lake. You and your family were hiking up to Granite for the day. Granite was still frozen and you asked if I was going to still camp there, with all the snow and all. Does that ring a bell ? I think it was you because you posted the trip.
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