It was my last trip of the season, so I wanted an easy walk among the lakes. The only remarkable part was the last leg.
I started from the Crabtree trailhead and walked to Gem Lake. Lots of good sites at the east end of the lake. The next day, I walked east to Deer Lake, then north past Long Lake thru Spring Meadow, Salt Lick Meadow and Whitesides Meadow. I spent the second night at Y Meadow Lake, where there are good sites on the east side of the lake.
The interesting part of the walk came on the third day. I left Y Meadow and walked back out to the Lake Valley trail, the one that goes to Gianelli Cabin. I turned south at Chewing Gum Lake and found the trail back to Crabtree (stay west at the lake, at the base of the mountain). This trail climbs up over the ridge southwest of the lake, then descends to Crabtree. The last 100 yards of the climb is very steep, a Black Diamond run with no switchbacks and few footholds. After I made it over the top, the walk was mostly a downhill stroll through the forest, with a few very steep scrambles down rocky washes. I was following the trail as shown on the Tom Harrison map, but it seemed the trail was much longer than that, heading more southerly than Tom shows, then finally heading east to the main trail. Unfortunately, a bonehead move on my part deleted the track record from my eTrex before I could download it to my PC. I was interested in seeing how my actual track compared with the trail shown on the Harrison map.
Oh well, it was a good end to my season.
