Trip Report: Four Days in Emigrant Wilderness
6.12.2019 - 6.15.2019
In case you haven’t been tracking the frantic JMT hiker discussion (and seeing the insane PCT hiker vlogs) in the early season, this has been an incredible and wild winter in the Sierras. Liti and I had a pretty difficult time nailing down a doable backpacking trip this summer–I now have no fewer than five Sierra hiking loops mapped out in CalTopo, all ready to go, that were simply not doable this early season without some pretty extensive time in the snow. By early June the snowline was still around 8,000 feet, so we had to switch from our plan to go cross country to Moose Lake in SEKI to a lower elevation route in Emigrant Wilderness. Our original plan was to enter from Kennedy Meadows, sleep at Reservoir Lake the first night, and then hike south to explore Granite Dome and the surrounding lakes around 10,000 feet after a short cross country jaunt starting where the trail came close to Summit Creek. We were then going to backtrack north and take the trail branch east toward Kennedy Lake, then go off-trail south to Sharon Lake for our third night. Unfortunately the snow and snowmelt forced us to cut things slightly short.
Day 1, we made the short drive from Los Gatos to Summit, where we picked up our permit and I bought a sweet Smokey the Bear hat and a map. We had a great lunch at Mia’s Pizza–the large is huge, which was actually great because we brought the leftover pulled pork pizza with us for dinner at camp. We hit the trail around 3 PM at Kennedy Meadows, which was totally free of snow and actually quite dusty. A brief climb after some trail confusion took us to Reservoir Lake. You have to leave the main trail and drop down toward the lake a little bit in order to find the good campsites along the eastern shore of the lake, but there are some pretty clear use trails that lead to obvious sites with fire rings. We had a pretty relaxing night here having some raspberry tea around the fire, although we weren’t able to swim because the snowmelt made the lake ice cold.
The next day we got a pretty late start around 10 AM after building another fire in the morning for making coffee. As we hit the trail to continue south, we immediately hit an overflowing Grouse Creek, where I slipped off a log and decided to just walk in the creek with my shoes on. From that point on, the trail was more of a small creek than a dirt path, as the huge amounts of snowmelt must have found the trail to be the easiest route to flow down the mountainside. We found some pretty thick patches of wild chives along the sides of the trail.
Hopping between rocks and the sides of the trail took quite a bit more time than we expected, and we soon hit fairly consistent snow at around 8,000 feet elevation. The snow slowed our progress even more, although I did not feel any need to take out my ice axe or crampons (the snow was too slushy for crampons to help, and there wasn’t a lot of exposure so no need for the axe). Some snow bridges felt a little iffy as well. We eventually navigated to the point that the trail curved east, and from a viewpoint on the edge of the valley we could clearly see how furiously Summit Creek was flowing, powered by the immense 200%-of-the-historical-average snowpack melting into it. However, we could also clearly see the line we would be taking up to Granite Dome, so we chose to follow the trail at least to Summit Creek to see if we could make a safe crossing. We searched along the creek for a good 30 minutes trying to find a spot to cross, but the snowmelt was too powerful.
On top of that, Liti spotted a black bear on the opposite shore, so we decided that between the bear and the snow we should probably turn back and cut our losses. There was a nice campsite where we had stopped to survey Summit Creek, so we headed back there and set up camp for the night by a massive, beautiful bristlecone pine. There were plenty of super photogenic smaller ones growing along the cliff edge as well.
After a pretty exposed and windy night, we packed up and headed back toward Reservoir Lake before branching east toward Kennedy Lake. We passed a group heading for Emigrant Lake, and we let them know the trail conditions we had run into thus far–I am still not sure if there’s a footbridge over Summit Creek, because I don’t think there would have been a way across without one. At the trail junction we started to climb again up toward the basin that Kennedy Creek ran through, but the trail soon evened out as we hiked parallel to Kennedy Creek. The water was pretty much flowing as strong as Summit Creek, and our hopes weren’t high for getting to Sharon Lake either. Regardless, there were some great campsites along the trail, and after spending some time searching for a safe creek crossing to head up to Sharon Lake, we decided we’d have to just camp on our side of the creek again. I don’t think we missed out, as we had an incredible sunset that evening and I got probably my favorite shot of the trip.
Final day–had an uneventful hike out, skipped breakfast to hit the road faster and got that sweet sweet Manteca In-N-Out. I was a little bummed that we weren’t able to make it to either of our off-trail objectives, but I’m pretty confident we made the right call regarding both creeks. Emigrant grows on me more and more every time I go, and I’m looking forward to making the same trip sans snow to properly explore the alpine lakes around Granite Dome.
Thoughts on gear
After maybe 9 months of use, the buff has really grown on me as a super versatile piece of gear. I have the mid-weight merino version, and it’s been great for everything from cold-weather running and bike commuting (below freezing temps!) to protecting my neck and ears from snow reflection sunburn on Whitney. The little pamphlet showing all 307 ways to wear it seems a little ridiculous at first, but I’ve really found myself legitimately using the buff in a lot of different ways.
Still loving the Sportiva Bushidos. They’re aggressive enough for slushy snow or powdery sand, dry out fast, and the rubber is sticky and the shoe is stiff enough for me to pretty much use as an approach shoe for rock climbing now. I tested putting crampons on them and they took them fine (Black Diamond Contact strap-on). I have literally zero complaints about the shoe.
I feel like I’ve put in enough nights in the Big Agnes Fly Creek now to comment on it. It’s certainly not an ideal tent for me, but it does well enough and it was expensive enough that I don’t have much reason to replace it until something malfunctions really badly. It’s super light, sets up quickly, is freestanding, and the materials have been surprisingly durable so far. There’s also a way to rig a fly-only pitch if you have a semi-fitting footprint. The tradeoff is that everything is just kind of small–the interior gets cramped with two people, there’s only one door, and the vestibule will just barely hold two packs plus some gear and shoes. If I had to do it again I’d probably go with something like a Tarptent that uses trekking poles instead of dedicated tent poles and is a traditional triangular shape to facilitate sitting up inside the tent. Still, it’s certainly not a bad UL tent if you get it for a good price.
Lastly, I switched to a down bag on an impulse purchase during a big Mountain Hardwear sale. The Phantom Spark is a 28F bag compared to my old synthetic 20F REI bag but it’s around half a pound or a pound lighter. I’m pretty sure it’s warmer than 28F, and generally if it gets close to the temperature limit I’ll sleep in my fleece or even my down jacket anyway to boost the rating. It’s performed well so far, the interior fabric feels nice against the skin and the loftiness makes it really cozy.