High Sierra Topix

Much enjoyed the read. Another person that has long wanted to base camp at Lertora. Thanks for taking the time to craft up your report. I've learned to avoid trips when forecasts indicate I may be wasting effort to work photo subjects. I rarely manage strong broad landscape subjects with grey skies. Often on week long trips, a day or two with afternoon t-storms is little issue as calm mornings are usually most important. Decades ago as twentysomething, hiked in a day, from Crabtree all the way to Woods Lake in sneakers ended up with painfully sore feet.

An downsized for web image of where you climbed down the slabs of the Yellowhammer outlet stream near peak snow melt in June 2017. The actual image is 1 column 4 row vertical focus stack and stitch blend 3900 by 16500 pixels with considerable detail. A print to slap on a wood door.

Thank you for your observations, Dave, and for sharing that spectacular vertical shot of Yellowhammer outlet. It certainly was very different from the babbling brook I encountered, but I can see exactly where I walked on its shores.

Yes, you above most others understand my disappointment that the weather ruined most of my photography opportunities.

Nice trip, in spite of the rain. I've never been to this part of Emigrant and the granitic slabs and the like make for a very nice landscape. NW Yosemite is similar but I don't know of a place in NW Yosemite where one can walk on slabs for such distances as you show around Big, Yellowhammer etc. I think I'll have to add this to the list of places I'd like to get to.

Thanks for your very interesting trip report. I've also been frustrated by rain on trips the last few years. Fortunately, it has usually been sunny in the mornings, which makes the soggy afternoons more tolerable. I'm sorry that you had some day-long gray skies and rain.
-Phil

That's a great tale of perseverance under tough conditions. We came into the same area just one week later, and had nothing but luck with the weather again. We had fires each night, and that might have allowed you to dry, or at least smoke your wet clothes. I think you managed some very fine photos throughout, and really liked some of those you took on the gray days. I was seeing the long, very linear stretch of Wood Lake for the first time, and thought it remarkable. I wonder if geologist giantbrookie would tell us that it follows a fault line, or some other story? Did any wildlife come out on the rainy days to greet you? One thing I hope for on cold wet days is that the Bears might come out to forage.

Thanks for putting this report together Ken.

Harlen wrote: ↑Fri Sep 15, 2023 11:41 am That's a great tale of perseverance under tough conditions. We came into the same area just one week later, and had nothing but luck with the weather again. We had fires each night, and that might have allowed you to dry, or at least smoke your wet clothes. I think you managed some very fine photos throughout, and really liked some of those you took on the gray days. I was seeing the long, very linear stretch of Wood Lake for the first time, and thought it remarkable. I wonder if geologist giantbrookie would tell us that it follows a fault line, or some other story? Did any wildlife come out on the rainy days to greet you? One thing I hope for on cold wet days is that the Bears might come out to forage.

Thanks for putting this report together Ken.

Thanks for the kind words, Harlen.

The long, linear shape of Wood Lake is, I believe, due to a check dam build by Leighton sometime between 1920-1950. See this book:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/leight ... 1136057114
I have not actually seen the outlet to confirm there is a check dam at Wood, but I have seen numerous others and almost all the long-ish lakes (lower Buck, Yellowhammer, middle Wire, Long Lake, High Emigrant, Leighton, etc.) have check dams that backed them up and flooded long stream valleys. Yellowhammer, right next to Leighton's central "camp," was the first in 1920. Leighton Lake is pretty obvious, since in its upper reaches there are still dozens of dead tree snags emerging from the water--killed by drowning.

Emigrant has been deeply reshaped by Leighton's activities--the majority of the lakes and nearly all the trails bear his imprint. These check-dams also became highly controversial after wilderness designation in 1975. There was a movement to protect them--and the Leighton Camp--but this failed to be adopted during wilderness designation. So the current plan under the Wilderness Act is not to maintain them. In time they will all fail, and the majority of lakes in Emigrant will drop in level and a few will vanish. I presume when that happens that Wood Lake will probably just be the lower lake with a long stream running into it.

Great report and photographs under "interesting" conditions. I've read many of your reports, and they helped for my return to the Emigrant, following some of your same route a few days later. But in six days, I had only one day of intermittent but persistent thundershowers. I also dropped down to the lower trail from Crabtree TH, and spent the night at one of the places you've written about: upstream in the junipers above the W Fork of Cherry Creek crossing. Nice choice. From there I went to Upper Buck Lake, and then dropped down to Huckleberry on the main trail. With the short days, I didn't have too much time to fish, but as texan said, there are some bigger fish in Huckleberry--catching them with dry flies right in the shallows. From Huckleberry, I climbed the ridge to the SE into Yosemite, and contoured around and then up the slabs, following Kendrick Creek to the the outlet of Lower Twin Lake--that's where I spent most of the afternoon and evening in my tent instead of fishing. From there I worked my way past Upper Twin, Maxwell, Emigrant, and Deer Lakes. From an old Californian, in both senses of the word, long since displaced, I thoroughly enjoyed the trails and fishing in Emigrant--reminded me of my old graduate school days. Again, thanks for your interesting and informative report and photographs.

I'm glad my ruminations were useful to you, Montana, and welcome to HST! Happy you liked the camp on the W Fork cascades. One of the nicer camps I've found.

That was quite a trip you did. Getting from the south side of Huckleberry over to Kendrick Creek sounds like a challenge, not to mention getting around both Twins to get back to the trail. You covered a lot of ground. Would love to see some pictures.

I was out there at the same time, attempting to do the same route in reverse. The rain was consistent for the three days I was out there. I hiked with wet shoes the entire time and wet pants brushing against all of the wet vegetation. It wasn't ideal and I changed up my route because of it. Somehow I still enjoyed myself. The flowers looked like what I'd expect in early July most years so that was a treat. I wound up doing Crabtree > Cow Meadow Lake > Huckleberry > Buck Lakes and Deer Lake > Crabtree in 48 hours. This was the second time my plans for exploring Cherry Creek were stymied by weather. 2021 it was the smoke, this year the rain. I'll have to go back and try for a third time. I gravitate to higher sierra elevations typically but Emmigrant always surprises me with the beauty of its denser forests and intimate lakes. Thanks for sharing your report.