Gianelli trailhead to deer lake

[Thomas Wipfli]

A few of my buddies and I are going to go on a trip next weekend the 15th of August and wanted to get some good fishing in. I heard that going out to deer lake would be a great spot because of all the surrounding lakes too. From gianelli to deer lake is said to be about 11.6 miles and I just wondering If anyone has done this before and can give any insight to doing that hike in a day. We only have Friday Saturday and Sunday and I would like to get to deer lake Friday and hike out Sunday. If so any suggestions or tips to making it a good trip would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this

[Manfred]

Thomas,

I recently hiked with my wife from Crabtree TH to Deer Lake in a day. I assume you selected Gianelli to start higher up (8600 ft instead of 7160 ft) and avoid that extra 1500 ft of climb. We picked Crabtree (same distance to Deer Lake) to have more options for fishing and swimming. We went directly by Camp Lake, Piute Lake, Gem Lake and Jewelry Lake before getting to Deer Lake. We almost decided to camp at Gem Lake after a refreshing swim in there, but continued to Deer Lake and fished our trout for dinner there.
For us it was worth it to start from Crabtree. We didn't mind the extra climb and enjoyed our swims in Camp Lake and Gem Lake a lot during a hot day. Having several lakes as options to stop for the night and fish/swim there was our main driver for starting at Crabtree.

Have fun out there!

Manfred

[Thomas Wipfli]

Thank you very much, that was my original idea and was swayed the other way. That sounds like a great route and glad to hear you caught some fish and hoping to do the same.

Best

Tom

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