Emigrant Wilderness Backpacking
At Buck Lake
Eric and Matthew
Nov 8-9, 2025
26 miles
I flew down to California Friday evening and we drove up to the Crabtree trailhead Saturday morning. NOHRSC was showing the snow from Wednesday had mostly melted out, so we went ultralight with trail runners and light packs. The trail passed by many alpine lakes and it reminded me of the Enchantments in WA. We made it to Buck Lake about 12 miles in and set up camp. I think this area gets really crowded in the summer, but we had the whole lake to ourselves.
The route
The fish weren’t biting in the afternoon so we did a quick side hike to Peak 9047 to admire the views. Back at camp we tried fishing again at sunset, but didn’t have any luck. We had a nice campfire to roast some meat, and found a nice tent site.
The next morning we hiked out early making a loop down the next valley north, then drove back to San Jose in the afternoon in time for my flight back to Seattle.
© 2025, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.
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