Emigrant Wilderness Backpacking

Soon after returning from Africa Jim called up saying he was going to be in town wondering whether I'd be up for a quick adventure.

I had only been back in San Francisco for a few days but I was ready to head into the mountains - or so I thought. We had a great time exploring a new area of the Sierra, checking out a trail head on the Western side of the Emigrant Wilderness but with Meghan arriving in California within a few days and only back from Africa for a few days I had too much on my mind to truly escape. We decided to cut the trip a little short but still the time we had was great.

We started near the Gianelli Cabin trail head (though no cabin was visible to us) and hiked out to the smaller granite lake. Most of the hike was over snow but this late in the season it was mostly easy going - no wet shoes but plenty of opportunities to lose the trail. It was slow going at times as we traced where we thought the trail would lead. Inevitably we made a few wrong turns but we were always able to right ourselves.

There were very few other adventurers out this weekend and we were glad to have most of the backcountry to ourselves. The weather was excellent if a little cool overnight.