Pear Lakes

[MountainMinstrel]

Pass thru permit means you aren't camping at the first allowed camping spots, designated sites at emerald and pear lakes. You would head up the river or the use trail to tablelands. There is a different permit for Alta which also has a lot of camping restrictions.

Thanks for the info. I have only done the loop from the Alta Peak side and had reservations at Pear anyway.

[stephen_sd]

I saw the same choice and it is new this year as they are not doing any walk-up permits.

Here is my interpretation: Pear Lake trailhead has a limited number of entries each day and a fixed number of designated campsites at the lakes. So there could be days where entry permits are available for the trail but no campsite is available because parties are already spending multiple nights at the lake.

You could still start at that trailhead that day if you elect to pass-through Pear Lake area and camp in the backcountry locations like Moose Lake, Lake Azure, Tableland Meadow. These are all off-trail.

[grampy]

The SEKI permit application lists these as separate entry trails.

A friend was recently talking about getting a permit for the Lakes Trail (with Pear Lake as a first-night destination); I checked the SEKI website - including the “Permit Reservations Availability” page and the “Wilderness Permit Application” page itself; I don’t see any reference to the “pass-thru” option.
>> Would you mind posting a link (or description) of where you saw it, so I can pass it on to my friend ? Thanks.

[thegib]

It's nice they make that distinction as most go no further than Pear lake and thus there's little reason to count Pear lake's numbers against the few people who plan their first night in the wide open Tablelands.

[jimmeans]

The SEKI permit application lists these as separate entry trails.

A friend was recently talking about getting a permit for the Lakes Trail (with Pear Lake as a first-night destination); I checked the SEKI website - including the “Permit Reservations Availability” page and the “Wilderness Permit Application” page itself; I don’t see any reference to the “pass-thru” option.
>> Would you mind posting a link (or description) of where you saw it, so I can pass it on to my friend ? Thanks.

Nothing that I could find on the SEKI website mentions the Pear/Emerald Pass Through trail. There is a PDF download for the Wilderness Trip Planner that also has no description of the Pass Through trail. The website and Wilderness Trip Planner use the name Lakes trail. When you download the PDF permit application there are pulldowns for selecting the entry trails, and that is where Pear/Emerald Lake and Pear/Emerald Pass Through options appear.