What to do when permits are gone

I believe 20-40% of the reservations are reserved for walk-ins… so if you get there early you will be good.

The worse thats ever happened to me really is that I’ve had to find an alternate hike..

I’ll probably be there around 3 pm on Friday. I am just assuming that’s probably not going to work in my favor due to the weekend crowds!

There are lots of Sierra trailheads, I’m sure you can find something if you call around. The Emigrant Wilderness is really nice and they have no quota system. I bet some posters on here can chime in with recommendations for lesser traveled areas.

Just checked out some images on the Emigrant Wilderness are, looks pretty sweet. Any trail loop ideas for that area?

Well, there are two main areas to enter the Emigrant Wilderness. The first is the Crabtree Trailhead coming from the west. There is also the Kennedy Meadows trailhead which starts from highway 108 at the northern end of the wilderness and heads south. Both are great places. The western part starting at crabtree is at a lower elevation (very little chance of altitude sickness), but it feels higher with all of the granite and exposed areas. The kennedy meadows side takes you through some beatitiful aspen forests and then up to much higher elevations.

If you don’t mind a little off-trail, from kennedy meadows you can hike to lower relief valley, walk up the creek drainage, which is an easy off trail walk uphill through forests and small boulder hopping, up to the beautiful iceland lake. From there you can explore the other lakes up in that basin.

If you like lakes, Emigrant is all about lakes. There are lots of them.

Here is a trip report from a couple years ago: https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/91615/

I just plan 3-5 options and go with whatever is available for walk-up permitting.