July 2000

Well, as I continued to see my last summer pass by before I entered the real world. Mark Holman and I determined that we needed to get into the great outdoors. We packed up for a place neither of us had ever been before, the Emmigrant Wilderness. Our target, Emmigrant Meadow Lake, about 13 miles of trail hiking into the wilderness. Since we were young lads and had all sorts of things we wanted to do in the wilderness we filled our bags each with 60 lbs of gear and food. (A lot of wich was food, thanks to my weight conscious shopping). We planned to start out with a nice 5 mile afternoon start. We parked in the designated area, which added an extra mile and a half (unnoticeable on the way out). Next to us was a couple with two dogs that embarked as we geared up. We caught up to them on the sunny entrance and played leap frog for awhile. With our packs at their heaviest loads, we faced what turned out to be our roughest part of the hike. It took a while to get out of the flats and then started the climb. The first leg of which ended up at beautiful Relief Resevoir.

Of course, that first leg had a little detour on it to raise the frustration levels just a bit. The trail took a Y that wasn't marked on the map. Either, could have been correct, but it seemed like the map indicated right since was wanted to walk along the lake toward the other side. Once we got to the lake the trail got smaller and smaller and then split in different ways, ending up as an animal trail. We turned back and met our friends with the dogs whom had made the same mistake.

After a nice walk looking over the lake and witnessing a powered inflatable raft that some psycho must have carried in, we embarked on the real uphill. It was gradual, but it was the big elevation climb. About 1500' of elevation gain in about 4 miles for the first day. We crossed grouse creek without getting our socks too wet. With the lake now behind us, and the sun threatening to drop behind the mountains, we raced for the meadow on the other side of the ridge. Looking for that meadow and the perfect, easy, campsite.

That evening was full of surprises... Mark's backpack had a bear can strapped to the bottom, but his bag decided it didn't want that extra load. The loops ripped off, forcing me to carry both bear cans. We hiked out on the left side of this picture and entered into an incredible valley. You can kind of see its beginning. It was neat to see it in the evening on the way in, and in daylight on the way out.

Then as the terrain flattened out we began seeing little meadows. Thinking, do we stop here? How much further is our goal? How much more light do we have? Then, right there in front of us was a doe standing in the dusk light on the trail. We stopped and watched as it pranced around, ignorant of us for some time. It bounced into some brush and snuck off before I could snap a good picture of it. We hiked a little further and found a water source, a great campsite, and some space to cook. By the time we dropped off our gear, we were pulling out my headlamps. Multitasking to gather wood and setup the tent. Then finish off the day with the best soup I've ever had.

The next morning, we payed for our long hike. We had acheived a nice lead over our friends with the dogs, but as we were cleaning up from a nice breakfast and began thinking about packing up there they went, passing us up again. We realized that it must have been 10:00am, pretty late for a hiking start to the day. We hit the trail a little before noon, but neither of us had a watch so we were guessing using our own extensive experience reading time from the sun.

Mark was the designated map boy. He was prepared for anything. Loaded with deet, a knife, a compass, and a couple ten minute maps. He guided our course, making certain we stayed on that mule trail. We had a gentle start that morning through the trees looking up at steep mountains on either side of us with a gentle stream on our right. It wasn't long before we saw some left over snow. A little further we saw the snow melting away from the bottom first, as the earth was warmer than the air. This formed some really neat snow caves. The one we were standing in front of seemed to go all the way back, clear to the other side, a good 50 feet or so. But it was cold in there.

We continued on, to a short but steep climb and entered into the real meadow. Lunch Meadow. We could just barely see our friends on the other side of the meadow.