Emigrant Wilderness, well kinda

[Backpack Jack]

This trip was put together by David Wage, (thanks again David for eveything) and we were supposed to end up at Emigrant Lake. Me and Kevin got to the trail head with both Davids at around 10:30 am on Fri. This normaly wouldn't be to bad, but me and Kevin had to drive over 6 hrs to get there, and I only had 2 hrs of sleep on Thus. night before we started this treck. Needless to say when we got to the jct. to Kennedy Lake, I hit the wall and had to stop and eat lunch. It was obvious we weren't going to make it to Emigrant Lake. After I ate, we started hiking and both Daves came back down the trail looking for us, we all decided to make camp at the resivour instead of Emigrant lake. Tomorrow we would hike to Kennedy lake and spend the day fishing, even with the changes this turned out to be a great trip.

At the parking lot ready to go.

Whispy blue skys

A few flowers still hanging on before summer hits.

More pics coming

More blue skys and clouds

Upward and onward.

Oh its so hot out, but this looks tempting.

This is what I got to look at for fathers day weekend.

[Backpack Jack]

[David Hankins]

Looks like you had fun.

What trailhead did you start at?

[Backpack Jack]

I believe it was Kennedy Meadows.

[Marc Eldridge]

Thanks Dave for the trip to Emigrant Lake although it was a shame we never got to meet up. My brother Rick called on wednesday night and said that he wanted to drive himself to Kennedy Meadows and not ride with Matt Bokariza and I. Rick drove up thursday and got a campsite at Baker camp so we had a place when Matt and I got there about 11 pm. We got up early friday morning and drove to the trail head parking lot not expecting to see anyone there it being so early. We knew Dave was going to pick up the permit so headed off. It was a nice beautiful cool day for the hike in. We stopped for lunch where the trail crosses the 9000 foot contour and sat and watched some thunderheads and dark clouds rolling in our way and listened to the thunder. It looked like rain but none of it was actually hitting the ground. Matt had stopped by Summit Creek to do a little fishing and finally caught up to us at the Brown Bear Pass junction. From there we hiked through the high meadows and down to Emigrant Lake. The closer we got to Emigrant lake the more mosquitoes we encountered. Thank you Peter for the head nets. The east end of the lake is a bog so we thought there might be less mosquitoes at the western end of the lake so we hiked down there. At the end of lake the trail veered off to the north and climbed a little. As it turned out there was a bog there also. We set up camp on granite slab just before the trail started down. All three of us had hammocks so it was no trouble setting up camp in the trees that were there. Just about sunset the wind started and drove the mosquitoes away which was a good thing. The wind was gusting pretty good up there and driving my tarp into the side of the hammock as I was set up perpendicular to the gusts. The bad thing about it was it was flapping and making alot of noise and bumping into the hammock and kept waking me up. Did finally get a little sleep early in the morning.
Packed up the next morning and headed to the east end of the lake to meet up with the rest of the group. Matt had gone before us to make some water and I caught a glimpse of him just as we came to the lake but he was hiking faster than us so we didn't see him again. Evidently he had gone down to the lake and we passed him somewhere along the way. We looked around the east end of the lake for the group but found no other footprints on the trail so at that point surmised that they had camped somewhere short of the lake and we would be running into them on the trail. We continued the short climb out of Emigrant Lake and just before Lunch Meadow ran into another hiker, the first one we had seen so far. We asked if he had seen a group of hikers and he said he hadn't so at that point we were wondering what had happened. We hiked passed Lunch Meadows and set up at Sheep Camp. Matt came in about an hour later and set up. We were pretty tired from the restless night before so layed around the rest of the afternoon, had dinner then had a really nice nights rest.
Woke the next morning packed up and hit the trail. We had our fishing gear at the ready and when the trail got close to Summit Creek we started to fish. Matt and I had the Tenkara setup and Rick had the regular fly setup. We stayed there almost an hour and caught quite a few fish, mostly in the 8 inch range. We hit a couple more holes further down the trail and did pretty good at all of them. The trail then veered away from the creek so we pressed on to Kennedy Meadows getting there about 4 pm. Rick and Matt stayed at the store and I went and picked up the jeep. No sign of the group at the trail head parking. Went back to the store and sat in front on the benches on the porch. They had wifi there so for $5 I was able to get online with my iPhone and check email to see if there was any word of what happened to the rest of the group. Nothing there so we parted ways with Rick who was going to Markleeville to do some more fishing and Matt and I headed down the hill. He got a signal at Strawberry so I called Jack to see what had happened. I had picked up a sewing machine for him in Livermore on the way up so was trying to see if we could meet maybe in Oakdale to give it to him. It was 5:30 by that time and he was down past Fresno. He told me what had happened to the rest of the group so that solved that whole mystery.
Thanks again Dave for the great trip. Really some beautiful country in the Emigrant Wilderness.

[chris Nelson]

Great Pics! Looks like it is getting pretty green up there. I was there Memorial Day weekend and not much green and still snow.

[David W.]

Great pictures Jack! You are becoming quite the photographer. Marc, I am so sorry we were not able to meet up on this trip. It looks like BPL was well represented throughout the wilderness area this weekend and you guys had a great hike without us. Did you get to do and fishing in or near Emigrant Lake. I really wanted to try fishing the outlets with the Tenkara setup.

Here are a few more pictures from Kennedy Lake:

Jack, Kevin and Shasta fishing

Kennedy Lake

Although the trip do not exactly go as planned it turned out to be excellent time. I look forward to hiking with this group again.

[Backpack Jack]

Does anybody else hate this, or is it just me.
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[Stephen Barber]

Looks like a great trip! That's such a beautiful area. I'm looking forward to hiking trough there in a week or so.

The last photo is less than gorgeous! I do wish horses weren't allowed in wilderness areas – or else had to wear diapers!!!

[David Hankins]

Ugh! Yeah, I really hate the amount of horse manure in the Emigrant Wilderness. I wish that the park service would cut down on the number of horses allowed in the Emigrant. I'd also like for the park service to ban livestock in the area, though livestock doesn't bother me nearly as much as the horse manure.

[Bob Gross]

"Ugh! Yeah, I really hate the amount of horse manure in the Emigrant Wilderness. I wish that the park service would cut down on the number of horses allowed in the Emigrant. I'd also like for the park service to ban livestock in the area, though livestock doesn't bother me nearly as much as the horse manure."

The park service has nothing at all to do with the Emigrant Wilderness. That is under the control of the forest service. The forest service believes in "multiple use" for all resources, and that sort of means that you might have backpackers, horses, and all terrain vehicles contending for the same areas.

By the way, why is it called the Emigrant Wilderness? It ought to be called the Immigrant Wilderness, since that was one of the original routes into California from the outside. The word emigrant implies that somebody was leaving.

–B.G.–

[Author]

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