Me and four old friends (2 human - 2 dog), finally got back into the Sierra. We spent six very nice days in the Emigrant Wilderness, starting from the Crabtree Trailhead, which can be reached from Hwy 108, just east of Pinecrest. The hiking began in a diverse conifer forest at about 8,600.' Carleton originally thought to take us along Kibbe Ridge, but that trail would've begun at a much lower elevation, ~5,700.' We were happily surprised, and grateful to find ourselves under smokeless, bright blue skies for the entire trip. After being stalled out for months for fear of enduring, rather than enjoying a backpacking trip, we went in where the smoke seemed lightest, and to a place I have long been hearing great things about. The Cherry Creek watershed has lakes strewn with islands, and vast expanses of glacially polished granite! After studying the maps, I was interested to find that the Cherry Creek tributary of the Tuolumne River drains a fairly central portion of the Tuolumne River watershed, with the Clavey and North Fork tributaries still farther to the west. This was my first time in the Emigrant, so I still have a lot to learn about this area. The nature of the granite formation fascinates me, and I wonder if its massive character (ie.,relatively few jointing planes), explains the unbroken sheets of glacially polished stone, and the sheer amount of exposed granite for the relatively low elevation. The trout fishery is also of interest; apparently some of the lakes have very good size fish, even rumours of "trophy fish," but then one of the big lakes I thought to camp by-- "Long Lake," and another where we did camp-- "Big Lake," are apparently fishless?
By our second day we were camped at the inlet end of upper Buck Lake. The Buck Lakes are in the Buck Meadow Creek drainage, which is part of the West Fork of Cherry Cr. It is a dog's paradise, with a shallow water area, and wide open meadows to play in. Bearzy was baffled but fascinated by meadow voles, whose burrows are under the tall sedges-- he would tilt his head listening, then pounce around like a fox, but come up empty. Bearzy and Carleton's Malinois "Smokey" raced each other, growling and play-fighting, and generally just being ecstatic! We stayed on for 2 days at Buck Lk. in order to hike up to the local high point-- "Black Hawk Mountain." We also climbed along a rising granite terrace to the ridge-top just west of our lake camp. This gave us a look into the next valley over, which holds the lovely "Long Lake." The highlight of that hike, especially for the dogs, was the small lake up under Peak 9397, where they could swim and drink to their dog-heart's content. We came across it unknowingly, having just decided to climb up the terrace on an early morning's caffeinated whim. Just when we were beginning to suffer from heat and thirst, there it was--the lake!
When we left Upper Buck Lake, we circled southeast for 6 miles to the upper end of the long and convoluted waterways of "Huckleberry Lake." We had only seen about 12 other hikers so far, and after Huckleberry Lake, we saw no one else till the car! Surprising, because we were on well-used trails for half of the time, and the lake and river country from Letora Lake on was spectacularly beautiful! Okay, I'll now show the trip chronologically with pictures:
This new scat was an enigma to us-- full of fur, and tapered at both ends, but without the characteristic twists of a marten or fox, and fox's tend to be blunt on one end. It smelled very pungent and foxy-- any experts out there? We did see a LOT of bear scat-- they were eating sedge, and old acorns, among other things.
