Emigrant 3-day trips

[BardoPond]

I'm planning a trip (or two) to Emigrant in the next month. We're thinking this coming Memorial Day weekend or mid-June.
In any case we'll be arriving at the trailhead Friday afternoon and hiking some 5-8 miles to get a head start.
This will be the start of our Sierra hiking season, and we'd be content with a few pretty lakes, mostly class 2 terrain, with some "reasonable" (?) cross-country.

Here are the options I'm thinking of:

1. Boundary Lake from Shingle Springs

I saw some inspiring trip reports of this area from Wandering Daisy and kpeter. We would aim to visit at least Boundary and Little Bear, perhaps Inferno Lakes (depending on how comfortable we feel navigating), and check out Lord Meadow once we're back on trail.
I know Kibbie Ridge is somewhat boring, but it seems the destination is worth it.
This being lower elevation, I wonder if we'd be heading into mosquito season there.

2. Granite Dome from Kennedy Meadows

I'm enticed by the lakes NW of the dome, as well as a side trip to the summit.
Kennedy Meadows is reportedly open.

3. Hyatt Lake from Crabtree/Gianelli/Coyote/Bourland

Hyatt, Big, and Pingree Lakes look beautiful as well, and sound like classic EW spots.
Unclear which of these trailheads will be open, but I'll check with SNF during the week.


I'd love to get any tips for these destinations, both in terms of beauty and conditions this time of year.

[kpeter]

I'm headed out Kibbie Ridge on Monday for 6 nights. The problem with a 3 day trip is that gives you relatively little time to cash in on the hard work of getting there.

Crabtree to the southern Cherry Creek crossing to camp, followed by a day of dayhiking, is a three day trip I have done. If the creek is fordable you can dayhike to Big Lake and back from the camps around the Cherry Creek crossing. And it is a beautiful spot to camp when there is water sluicing down the granite--about a half mile of whitewater. Hint: head upstream and not downstream to find more open breezy campsites with fewer mosquitoes.

But I don't think mosquitoes are going to be a problem for a couple of weeks. The cold snap will have set them back. Cherry Creek got down to 28 degrees last night, which should be enough to set back the bloom.

The problem could be cold temperatures. I am taking extra clothes beyond what I would normally take in August.

[Wandering Daisy]

Granite Dome and Pingree-Hyatt Lakes both require some major stream crossings. You may want to ask the FS rangers about that if you go as early as Memorial Day weekend.

If you go into Boundary Lake, it is a short drop down to Lord Meadow to see Cherry Creek at full flow. Sometimes the trail up Kibby Ridge is hard to follow early in the season if it has overgrown since last worked on. Good news is that you can drive to Shingle Springs.

I really like Granite Dome and the lakes up there. But the off-trail is not trivial, and you have to cross streams. But distances are short. Memorial weekend will likely be crowded into the reservoir and on to Emigrant Lake. Few people go up to Granite Dome and Lewis Lakes. For reference, I was able to cross Summit Creek after dropping down from Lewis Lake on on 6/1 2014. On that trip I did a long loop from Gianelli- the road had just opened.

Rather than Pingree and Hyatt, you could do Pingree and Big Lake. I thought Hyatt was hard to get to. I could not cross Cherry Creek at the Gem Lake trail July 1 2019- had to retreat - then went up to Kennedy Lake, which was great. That was a high snow year, but also a month later than Memorial Day. For reference, I was able to cross Cherry Creek on the Gem Lake trail 6/11/18 and coming out from Pingree (old trail to that goes north of Pingree) crossed Buck Meadow Creek just south of Gem Lake 6/14/18. Still moderately difficult but not bad.

If you think about Kennedy Lake be sure to check with FS regarding when the cattle are brought in. In 2019 July 5 as I was going out they were just bringing them in.

[c9h13no3]

If you want the trip to for sure work, the Kibbie option is best due to stream crossings. I'll also second WD's suggestion of Kennedy Lake, bridged crossings there as well.

FWIW I thought Relief Creek was easier to cross than Summit Creek near Granite Dome, but I did both later in the season.

[Wandering Daisy]

When you say "a head start on Friday", exactly how does that fit into your "3 days"? Do you mean:

Friday - drive and hike 5-8 miles
Saturday- all day hiking (how many miles?)
Sunday - all day hiking (how many miles?)
Monday- hike and drive home (same as Friday?? 5-8 miles and drive?)

If on Memorial Day weekend, have you considered traffic delays? Where are you coming from?

If you write this all down, and measure miles and estimate hiking time, you can see if the logistics work out. If you do Kibby Ridge, there are limited opportunities for camping due to lack of water. Sachse Spring (ranger cabin) is a good place to camp. If you do the Pingree Lake trip, you may want to camp and then cross Cherry Creek in AM next day. The Granite Dome option has the most flexibility for water sources. Tons of options.

Here is my map of the options of getting into the lakes by Granite Dome. Solid lines are trails, dashed off-trail. It is all class 2 but navigation is tricky and there is brush.

Routes

[balzaccom]

I agree about the stream crossings. This time if year, all bets are off.

Kennedy Meadows to the area by Granite only requires one (Summit Creek) that doesn't have a bridge, as I recall, and it's pretty far up the trail. You might be able to make it to where the trail hits Summit Creek on the first day, spend the second day exploring (crossing the creek early, when it is likely to be lower) and the hike out the third day, and crossing early in the morning on your way out ..

We had an easier time with Summit Creek than Kpeter did ..but it all depends on the year. And we had miserable skeeters at Sachse Spring. I would get water there and then dry camp further on...

[BardoPond]

Thanks everyone for the great tips.
To clarify, I'm counting Friday and Monday as half days, so ~3 days of hiking total.
We are now leaning towards the weekend after Memorial Day, mainly to avoid crowds and traffic (driving from the East Bay).
Looks like we'll decide earlier that week based on what we find out about creek crossings, but in the meantime I'll try to identify plans A and B.

From Crabtree (if open), I see two good on-trail loop options: Big and Pingree or Buck Lakes. Any recommendation between these two?
If going to Big Lake, I would be tempted to try to reach Hyatt, but I'll carefully consider this given WD's assessment.

Kibbie Ridge seems the safest early-season trip due to the lack of stream crossings, but would also involve more repetition. Would the combination of Boundary, Little Bear and Lord Meadow be worth the trip?

Granite Dome seems like the most complex option, so perhaps I'll leave this for another trip (thanks so much for the detailed map!).

[Wandering Daisy]

From Big Lake, if I had only one day hike to do it would be walking the slabs down to Cherry Creek instead of Hyatt Lake. But I happen to really like this kind of travel. Buck Lake is pretty but I mainly go there to fish. Pingree-Big Lake may be better if just hiking. Only advantage of Buck Lake is that you can get there all on trails, whereas Pingree-Big Lakes requires off-trail travel.

There is an unmaintained very old trail that is quite obvious about a quarter mile upstream from the river crossing just south of Gem Lake. It peters out eventually. I have also gone in via Roseco Lake when there still was snow, and that was more difficult. It all depends where you want to cross Cherry Creek. The crossing on the trail to Gem Lake is easier.

The map below show some of my routes, not that they are the best ways to go. The different colors do not mean anything - just make it easier to see where a particular line ends and another begins.

Emigrant Routes

[paul]

The easy way yo get to Granite Dome is to go up through lower and upper Relief valleys, then to the dome from Upper Relief. You don't get all the little lakes that way, but the off-trail part is very straightforward, and you could do it by way of Pinto Lakes, just southwest of the dome, which don't look like much on the map but I found to be a very nice little spot - we camped at the upper lake. Might be a little boggy in the Upper Relief area.

[BardoPond]

I'm headed out Kibbie Ridge on Monday for 6 nights. The problem with a 3 day trip is that gives you relatively little time to cash in on the hard work of getting there.

How was your trip?

I'm now leaning towards Kibbie Ridge since it would offer more solitude compared to Crabtree. In either case, sounds like checking out Cherry Creek Canyon is a must.

Edit:
Just saw your condition report. Sounds like we'd want to at least avoid the x-country route to Kibbie Lake. Our plan would be to go straight to Boundary Lake and do day hikes from there (we should be able to get an early morning start on Friday after all).