Well, it started out pretty wild, but it was mercifully brief. Our first day in, on Sept. the 9th, we got light rain, followed by a little bouncing graupel... and finally the biggest hail in years-- marble-sized pellets! Thankfully, this pelting occurred when we three and two scared dogs were ensconced in our thin tents. It was dramatic-- thunder, lightning and all, but brief. Unlike Ken's recent Wet-all-through-the-Emigrant adventure, our storm blew itself far away for the rest of our days, leaving only fair weather cumulus to brighten the sky.
On this trip Lizzie and I had our two dogs, and friend Lars with us. Lars used to join us more often, and would help carry our boys high on his 6' 5" shoulders. Now he has reverted to shorter trips to wave his fly-rod over the waters. He was keen to fish the creeks, and the narrows of inlets and outlets of the lakes, so we chose to make a couple of our camps by the fishable waters of the West Fork of Cherry Creek. Looking at the maps, it appeared to us that Lower Buck Lake would have some interesting narrows for Lars to cast flies into. Our plan was to do the tight loop route from Crabtree trailhead east on the Crabtree Trail, and return west along the Bell Meadow Trail. These two trails parallel each other to and from Buck Lakes, just about a mile apart. So it isn't a big circle trip, but each trail passes by differently fascinating lakes, meadow, and swimming holes, and we enjoyed both ways a lot.
This westside Sierra country gave us views of a diverse conifer forest, with huge Red and White Fir trees, and Jeffreys, and Western White Pines, and then Juniper, and Hemlock, and the ubiquitous Lodgepoles. We were surprised by the amount of flower species still blooming, and the emerald greenery of the many meadows and lakeshores. What a colorful summer comes after such a heavy winter snowfall-- at least after the snow finally melts. We didn't see all the wildlife we hoped for, but it did seem as though the squirrel and chipmunk populations had exploded, and their long chattering calls followed us everywhere. The Chickaree Squirrel's call seems to be the perfect sound for the western forest, just like monkey calls suit the tropical jungle so well. The birdlife was also prolific-- especially the little flocks of juncos and warblers. We had the luck to see Redtail Hawks on several occasions, and one impressive Golden Eagle cruising along the granite cliff. Black-backed Woodpeckers and Red-shafted Flickers, and blue Steelers Jays all showed up too.
Our goals were to meet all the wildlife we could, including some of the giant Trout. I threatened windknot Matt that I was going to get one of his big fish, but only my wife Lizzie caught a really big Rainbow. We ate trout for dinner on three of our 5 nights, and we could have eaten them on the last night by Cherry Creek, but Lars lets smaller fish go. Deer Lake, Buck Lakes, and Wood Lake all gave us a few fish, but once again, I never did make it into the land of the big Trout, in the higher up Emigrant Lakes. We spoke to one old fisherman who raved to Lars about the size of the Golden Trout found in the Wire Lakes, and we all set to move up there, but then we met another seemingly knowledgeable fisherman who said the Wire Lakes were now fishless? Any comments to clarify that, or is it secret knowledge? On this short trip we also hoped to hike on the clean bright expanses of granite bedrock that the Emigrant is famous for, and we got to do a bit of that. The weather was fine, the mosquitos were scarce, and we had a great time.
We had to make do with our own big wild animals
