Just returned from a 4-day / 3-night trip (8/9-8/12) to the very eastern parts of Emigrant Wilderness which borders Yosemite NP to the north. 44+ miles and 7800' elv. gain. Great time to take this trip as the streams mostly have water still and the mosquito pressure was almost zero. I’m gonna get much more detailed in this post because I wish I had known the condition (or non-existence) of some of these trails before I went.
DAY 1:
Started at Leavitt Lake, east of Sonora Pass. Leavitt Lake Road (Forest Service Route 077) is a jeep road that leads south a few miles from Hwy 108 and I was in an SUV. Well, that road quickly developed clearance requirements far surpassing my SUV so I pulled over down a little use road about a mile in. It was a Friday in early August so my son and I were able to hitch a ride with someone heading up to the lake in a 4WD pickup.
Leavitt Lake Trail starts southeast of the lake and is cut out of the black and red volcanic ridges that border Kennedy Creek. That geology allows for making smooth, evenly-graded trails, with very fair switchbacks. But there are still two ridges involving climbs of 1000+ feet and which top out above 10,500’. So us lowlanders were huffing and puffing, but got over the top OK. Great views in all directions, but especially striking to the east, toward Yosemite.
- Headed down the switchbacks into Emigrant Basin, just above High Emigrant Lake
- Looking due west to Molo Mt / Kennedy Peak
After descending our second ridge, we eased down to High Emigrant Lake. Then off to Grizzly Meadows where a few trails intersect. Took Lunch Meadow Trail south to skirt the southern slope of Grizzly Peak. Some of this was very rocky and not fun, especially downhill. The Summit Meadow was mostly dry and Day 1 camp was on the south side inside the tree line just where the trail takes a right hand turn.
- Summit Meadow (looking north), site of Night 1 Camp
DAY 2:
Today's plan was to start with a mild 300’ climb and then cruise downhill much of the rest of the day. I thought, “Easy”. WRONG! The trail was nice up to the outlet of Snow Lake, but then it got very indistinct and eventually we lost the trail altogether. The pass at the top of this climb was easy to see from the start, but we cross-countried through high grass and even higher shrubs to get there. Eventually the payoff was a peaceful grass and stone meadow at the pass. Good breakfast spot.
- Snow Lake from the south
The trail was not evident on the way down either, but we were able to cross-country over the classic granite slabs of the Sierra until crossing right over the old fishing dam at Bigelow Lake. Then the trail often disappeared while we dropped more than 1000’ down a painful, rocky slope to Horse Meadow. Was on Horse Meadow Trail shortly, then Huckleberry Trail. This was even more painful as we were stepping on/over baseball, softball, volleyball, and basketball rocks for the most of the way down. If at all possible, I’ll avoid this section in the future. Tough, tough going. Things got better after meeting Huckleberry Lake and climbing up Letora Lake Trail to Letora Lake.
- Unnamed lake south of Letora Lake
Then down again to Cow Meadow Lake. These trails (connecting Huckleberry Lake Trail and 21E16) are in good shape and easy to follow. Letora Lake especially was very pretty. Cow Meadow Lake was a good spot to camp on Night 2 although there are a lot of isolated pools/ponds around that I’m sure must make mosquito hell in the high season. Also, the meadow across from the lake housed a handful of horses with bells on their necks - audible from our camp. They stayed up late and woke up early.
- Horses near Cow Meadow Lake
DAY 3:
This day was awesome with all the best that the Sierra has to offer. Climbed up to Lower Buck Lake where we had breakfast on the shore then had a nice, flat hike up Buck Meadow.
- Lower Buck Lake
There are a lot of evident campsites on the west side of that meadow and I’d consider staying there in the future, but we instead hiked up another climb of rocky, steep, yet easy-to-follow trail to Emigrant Lake. The one-mile hike along the shore of Emigrant Lake was gorgeous and well built/maintained. One of the photos shows my son in the distance hiking up constructed steps with the lake on his right.
- Emigrant Lake
We made our way up to Black Bird Lake and then the trail started to get indistinct again. The “route” stays pretty close to the right side of the creek until it crosses it, then it veers left and gets more distinct for the steep, but not very long climb up to Middle Emigrant Lake. Between Middle Emigrant and Emigrant Meadow Lake, the trail is difficult to find, but you can just walk up the narrow valley if you lose it. Only the shrubs along the creek are annoying to fight through when you have to cross, but we eventually made it to a very peaceful Emigrant Meadow Lake. Again, hard to find the trail sometimes, but it is only grass out there and pretty flat. It was easy to acquire Lunch Meadow Trail north of the lake, because horses use it a lot. We started up Lunch Meadow Trail, but quickly did an intentional cross country to vector straight back to High Emigrant Lake. If we followed established trails it would have been 2.5 miles and 300’ of climbing. Instead we were getting water and resting at High Emigrant Lake with just a half a mile hike and 100’ elv gain.
There are a few flat spaces next to the trail north of High Emigrant Lake, but there are also more on the shore of the unnamed lake to northwest of High Emigrant. But we camped on Night 3 east of the trail. One of my photos shows my tent tucked in among the boulders, grass, and trees (with the next day's climb in the background).
- North of High Emigrant Lake
DAY 4:
We took our original trail over the two big ridges. In between the two ridges, the PCT joins the trail from the east for just a mile or so. Down to the west is Kennedy Creek and eventually Kennedy Lake and Kennedy Meadows. Instead we went up and over the Leavitt Peak ridge until we got back to Leavitt Lake basin.
- Switchbacking down to the headwaters of Kennedy Creek
I will note that there’s still a 100 meter long patch of snow on the north side of the southern ridge. You can see it on Sentinel Browser. The melt is the very top of Kennedy Creek and flows right across the trail. It is a great source of water that clearly doesn’t even need filtering. Wish I had known that before I hauled 5 lbs of water over those ridges on Day 1. Coming back I did know and used it as a reliable water source.
IN SUMMARY
Those southeastern portions of Emigrant which border Yosemite (Snow, Bigelow, Black Bear, Huckleberry, Letora, and Cow Meadow Lakes) are gorgeous, but the trails can be extremely rugged and/or faint. Saw and heard zero people between Grizzly Meadow and Buck Lakes; only passed maybe a dozen people in 4 days out there. So if you want to have some alone time and can commit to the physicality of the trail, the deep Emigrant Wilderness is a great option.
Oh - before you ask - I didn't bring any fishing gear so no report on that front. We did see a group that had a substantial camp set up between the two Buck Lakes. They were clearly there for fishing and clearly it was as multi-night camp.
