Got up for a quick one night trip to the Emigrant Wilderness after seeing that the Kennedy Meadows was open and 108 plowed to there.
Left Saturday morning early from the Bay Area and got to Kennedy Meadow Packstation around 830am. Was antsy and wanted to get out into the Wilderness and see all the snow and rivers for myself. Planned to get up to the Kennedy Lake and camp and come back on Sunday morning.
Didn't quite get all the way to Kennedy Lake. Around 7800ft the snow was thick and unrelenting under the lodgepole pine stands. Ended up getting to the lake and then back tracked to a nice meadow about 1.5 miles before it. The meadow was a great spot, settled into camp around 3pm and read a book and passed out for an hour, woke up ate dinner. Cowboy camped under the milky way on crisp night, woke about around 5am and on the trail back to the car about 1pm with leisurely downhill hike with stops for photos and snacks.
All-in-all a wonderful trip that helped scratch the backpacking itch after a long hard winter.
Overall opinion...still not many people out deep, almost no other people and few other tracks. No USGS Blue Line Creeks or Rivers are crossable without a bridge (all 3 on this route are open) or a solid early morning snow bridge....snow on the north slopes is still down below 7600ft and the south faces slopes above the tree line are 50% melted away...in the closed canopy forest there is still 3-6ft of snow with total ground cover around 7800ft.
First pic is of Kennedy Creek flowing into Middle Fork Stanislaus River.
Meadow before the snow with flowers popping and I believe Kennedy Peak in the back.
Meadow I camped next to, this meadow is obvious on google maps before the lake.
I thought about trying to cross the footbridge and going to Sharon Lake but this what the trail would look like
Just for references...this the snow under the lodgepole pine forest...miles of this stuff...
