TR: West Emigrant May 30-June3 2022

[kpeter]

Purpose of the Trip:

I've done many trips into Emigrant from the Crabtree trailhead, and this trip was not designed to cover new ground or be overly challenging. Instead, I was looking for an easy early-season trip that my 70 year old brother and I (63) could do following a Spring of health challenges. I had my left knee scoped and a graft in my right ankle just three months ago. I used the hope of a backpacking trip to motivate my physical therapy. As it turned out, this trip fit the bill.

Emigrant has a number of other advantages for me. It is the easiest Sierra wilderness for me to drive to--just three hours to the Summit Ranger Station in Pinecrest from the Bay Area. It requires no advance reservations and has no quotas. And it accepts my Ursack so I can cut a couple of pounds from the bear canister. The road from the ranger station to the trailhead takes about half an hour and is mostly paved, although there are a few rutted dirt stretches. In any case, a reasonable drive for an ordinary passenger car.

Day 1

I met my brother (who drove all the way from Washington State) at the ranger station, and we headed to the trailhead, getting a pretty late start. To our delight there was not a mosquito or any other insect in sight on Monday (Memorial Day.) There had been a freeze the night before and the hiking was cool and bug-free. Later in the week that changed and the famous Emigrant mosquitos began to appear in force.

Further contributing to our good mood was an early-trail encounter with HST's Flamingo, who recognized my HST patch on my hat and stopped to chat. We had not seen each other since the 2016 meet-up on the Lyell Fork. Flamingo gave me some useful intel about crossing and the trail up to Rosaco that I hoped to use in future days. We said good-bye to Flamingo who was finishing up his trip as we were beginning ours.

I really wanted to show my brother what Sierra granite was like, so Big Lake was on my agenda, and making it to the lower crossing of West Fork Cherry Creek was my goal for the first day.

DSC06156-1.jpg

But our late start and our discovery that our various infirmities were dramatically slowing our speed made me shift plans on the fly. We stuck to the high trail, passing Camp Lake,

DSC06139.jpg

crossing Lily Creek, and then beginning the uphill stretch to get to the unnamed lake at 7867 that everyone on the trail seems to call "Lily Pad Lake."

The last time I was at "Lily Pad Lake" it seemed like a jamboree--many many people camped in the granite at the West end. Fortunately the decision to go IN on Memorial Day was excellent--we crossed dozens of people coming out but by the time we got to the lake we had it to ourselves. There my brother and I had a delightful evening watching the light on the lake. I have often disdained "lowlands" lakes in the past, being much more attuned to granite and alpine country. But the oblique light on the pads and the aspen flickering on the opposite shore grew on me, and I began to appreciate the setting. It helps that my brother is a botanist and does research on fire ecology--whatever we looked at he could provide a richness of explanation and understanding that is far beyond me. He is fairly quiet, but was the perfect companion for an inquisitive person like me.

DSC06154-1.jpg

Day 2

I hoped to make it to Big Lake today, but that also was not to be. It turned out that my brother's knees were badly pained by downhill stretches with the pack. We went up and over the hump into Piute Meadow, then took the cutoff trail to Groundhog Meadow. That trail had some blowdown on it and we lost it for a hundred yards or so. Having reached the low trail in mucky Groundhog Meadow, we went up and over the next "passlet" to West Fork Cherry Creek.

Going over that stretch of the lower (Bell Meadow) trail surprised my brother. The unnamed creek has cut through 10-15 feet of soil recently--within the last 10-20 years he noticed, and estimated by the age of small trees growing in strategic locations, and mature trees about to topple. There was a large stand of 10-20 year old trees growing on recent silt deposits just upstream from Groundhog Meadow--those deposits were probably laid on top of the old meadow. Later in the trip we saw the same phenomenon along Buck Meadow Creek. "There must have been a huge torrent" he said, "perhaps a rain-on-snow event." I could not personally remember such an event, but the erosion was clear. At other points--such as the lower ford of Paiute creek, deposits of river sand could be found on the trail and elsewhere for hundreds of yards either side of the creek. So I ask: do any of you know of a large flooding event that hit Emigrant in the last 10-20 years?

Coming down into Louse Canyon is always a pleasure, looking upstream and seeing the creek cascading over granite and hearing its roar. Unfortunately, it also took a toll on my brother's knees, and we decided to stop at the West Fork for the day. There are large, packed-earth and forested camps downstream from the official crossing, on the west side, but I have never used them. We headed upstream to the first major cascades and camped under a couple of huge junipers. This delightful camp was higher and more open, had better views and access to the falls, and had a far superior place to ford the creek. We spent the rest of the day exploring the cascades, poking around downstream and up, admiring flowers, and relaxing.

[kpeter]

Day 3

By this point we had caught on. My brother was a perfectly good hiker without the extra weight of a pack crushing his cartilage-deprived knees. So we decided to spend a couple of nights at our idyllic camp on the W Fork and day hike.

The many times I had camped at the West Fork I had always made a point to explore the series of cascades and falls coming through the granite upstream. At what looked like the last fall, I had often look up and left and thought that it would probably be possible to climb up and over to cut through to Paiute Lake. So this is what we did to start our dayhike. So we started our seeing the cascades in their morning glory (and yes, the light is far superior on them in the morning, when the slanted rays catch and illuminate every droplet!)

DSC06198.jpg

DSC06204.jpg

DSC06193.jpg

DSC06209-2.jpg

Then we cut up and over to Paiute Lake, which never struck me as particularly special, but which provided us with a landmark and the chance to once again catch the main high (Crabtree) trail. We took the trail to the high ford, which was just as I remembered it. Sandy, slow, safe, a little more than knee high, and extremely cold.

From the ford the trail switchbacks uphill to Gem Lake. It is a delightful forest, alas with too many dying trees. The landscape is changing. Meadows are filling with trees now that there is insufficient snow to crush the saplings, and hillsides are filled with dying trees that will be replaced with dryer climate trees like Jeffreys Pines and junipers or sometimes just with brush. For better or for worse, our grand kids will not see the same sights that we see.

I had not been over this high trail since my first trip to Emigrant 15 some years ago, and so I saw Gem and Jewelry Lakes as if for the first time. Each was pretty in its own way. I still regret not getting back to Big Lake in its dramatic granite bowl, but these two have a nice water/tree/granite mixed interface that I do find appealing.

DSC06225-1.jpg

DSC06226.jpg

We had lunch at Jewelry Lake and turned back. When we reached Granite we took the connector trail down the granite to the lower (Buck Meadow) trail. I had never done this connector before, and it was fun. Much broken granite here with flowers poking out of many of the cracks. The Buck Meadow trail on the north side of Buck Meadow Creek, where the connector comes in, was in good shape. Flamingo and others noted, however, what I was reminded of from before--the lower (Buck Meadow) trail has lots of snow on it after it crosses the creek to the south side. There it parallels the creek on a north facing slope and in the shade, and given that it is a steep canyon and given that the trail has already fallen into the creek in a few places, it is not a pleasant trail to traverse until the snow is much reduced.

We passed the waterfall on Buck Meadow Creek, and as we approached West Fork Cherry Creek we angled cross country NW to get back to our camp. A hundred yards from camp there is a wide, low cascade, and after the water falls it runs directly across a smooth slab. There it was possible to wade the creek in ankle deep water. In fact, it was sufficiently fun that we played in the water for a while. Vastly superior to the cobbled knee deep crossing at the trail.

For the rest of the day we took it easy, had a nice dinner (I decided I really like Packit Gourmet's Shepherd's pie!), drank some hot chocolate, and sacked out.

DSC06263-1.jpg

Day 4

Given our slow pace we decided to go halfway out today, even though I have often gone all the way out from West Fork. Since we came in on the high trail, we decided to take the low trail.

We trekked back to Groundhog Meadow. After that, new terrain for this trip. The trail becomes interesting for a stretch after this. From Groundhog it is not far to the Paiute crossing--which was a bit messy (with lots of sand) but perfectly safe. From the crossing the trail climbs only a little before shooting through a gap and emerging at the top of a highly engineered trail of stair-steps, descending between purple flowers and cutting across talus before coming to the forest to the east of Grouse Lake. Last year this forest suffered a catastrophic blow-down--a freak event that felled hundreds of trees. The trail was obliterated for half a mile. I am happy to report that most of the livefall and deadfall have been sawn out, and the trail is passable again. Still, there are times when it feels and smells like a lumber-yard.

One of the disadvantages of the low trail are camping opportunities. Grouse Lake is the obvious choice, and it had never appealed to me. However, much like Lily Pad Lake, I was persuaded that it had its charms. I thought the best campsite was at the NW end of the lake. A 2003 fire burned right up to the west end of the lake, leaving the space to the west open but the northern shore of the lake enclosed in a dark canopy. The NW camp was right on the border and had excellent tent sites, a magnificent (large!) juniper tree, was sufficiently back from the lake and a bit higher that it was less buggy, and had some daylight. There we settled in for another lazy afternoon and evening.

DSC06292.jpg

While camped there I tried to find the trail that is marked on the old USGS maps that goes south to Chain Lakes. Alas, the trail through the burn zone has been obliterated. I could find no obvious turn-off, no post, no sigh, no cairn--nothing to indicate that the trail once existed. My guess is that the trail would emerge once getting out of the burn zone and starting up hill. But that means bushwhacking over deadfall and through marsh. Perhaps one of you has found it--I was not willing to expend the energy given it was our last day.

Day Five

Getting out from Grouse Lake was straightforward. Probably the least interesting part of the hike--trudging for a few miles through a twenty year old burn zone, then a few hundred feet of elevation rise across a shaley dark rock outcropping before joining up with the Crabtree trail once again. Then the old familiar slog around the mountain to Crabtree and home.

In the parking lot another HST member on the way in recognized my HST badge on my hat--I really recommend wearing one there to promote community! CalMntHkr! Let me know how your trip went!

I said farewell to my brother. We try to get together once a year on the trail, and the trip is always far more meaningful to us than even the sights and sounds of the wilderness.

[kpeter]

Additional flower pictures:

[westmatt]

Nice pics - I needed that today.

[balzaccom]

Lovely. We're big fans of that area.

Our best camping spots at Grouse Lake are on the granite slabs above the south shore...and it you are lucky, you get a bit of a breeze there, and relief from some of the pesky bugs.

[wildhiker]

There was a major Sierra flood event from atmospheric river rain on snow in 1997. Perhaps that caused the erosion and deposition you saw?
-Phil

[kpeter]

There was a major Sierra flood event from atmospheric river rain on snow in 1997. Perhaps that caused the erosion and deposition you saw?
-Phil

Wow, that must be it. Gianelli got 19" of rain in 7 days. Zounds. No wonder the trails were undermined, banks undercut, sand deposited, and meadows erased with till.

[Harlen]

Kpeter, Thanks for the fine report. We really loved some of your river shots, especially the cascades with the Paintbrush flowers in the foreground. Nice photography right on through!
This below from your botanist brother is fascinating. He has an experienced eye for forest ecology/history:

Going over that stretch of the lower (Bell Meadow) trail surprised my brother. The unnamed creek has cut through 10-15 feet of soil recently--within the last 10-20 years he noticed, and estimated by the age of small trees growing in strategic locations, and mature trees about to topple. There was a large stand of 10-20 year old trees growing on recent silt deposits just upstream from Groundhog Meadow--those deposits were probably laid on top of the old meadow. Later in the trip we saw the same phenomenon along Buck Meadow Creek. "There must have been a huge torrent" he said, "perhaps a rain-on-snow event." I could not personally remember such an event, but the erosion was clear. At other points--such as the lower ford of Paiute creek, deposits of river sand could be found on the trail and elsewhere for hundreds of yards either side of the creek. So I ask: do any of you know of a large flooding event that hit Emigrant in the last 10-20 years?

I was going to venture a guess that 2011's heavy weather might fit as the cause of his observations, but it looks like the amazing wildhiker is once again in possession of the best observation.

Glad you guys made the trip work out so well-- adaptive management of ones route, is a good skill. Cheers, Ian.

[SSSdave]

I knew there was a base camping trip in you. But it required help from your brother. Like that kind of granitoid terrain while water is flowing, that also tends to have nice wildflowers on gruss sand flats.

I just might fit in a mid length trip to Toejam and Leopold this summer for early/late sky reflections. Also have a 9/10 day Emigrant Meadow base camping trip in the queue however have been dealing with a couple of medical issues that killed my ski season and has left me in mediocre shape.

[Harlen]

kpeter, I wonder if your brother knew that small purple flower seen in your very last photo? We saw a real bloom of them covering openings in the Jeffrey Pine forest on Kibbie Ridge. Looks like a Phacelia of some kind. Can you ask him for us?