Cherry Creek, August 2007

Along Yosemite's northwest border country

lies the Emigranite Wilderness —

— er, um, the Emigrant Wilderness. The walking trip described here is a loop that starts and ends above Lake Lloyd (aka Cherry Lake), some six or seven miles west-northwest of Hetch Hetchy. About a third of the 23 or so miles is on trail. Most of the route is described in Ben Schifrin's book about the Emigrant Wilderness and Northwestern Yosemite, as parts of routes CL-1, CL-2, and CL-6.

The team:

Doug Landauer, Mark Bray, Heather Bray, Lindsay Buchan, and Ben Landauer

Photos by day

Thursday and Friday, 2-3 August ... the drive up, base camp at Cherry Valley Campground, and the walk (all on trail) to camp west of Kibbie Lake
Saturday the 4th ... cross-country to a great spot above Many Island Lake
Sunday the 5th ... pre-breakfast rock climbing, a ranger, a brief taste of trail, Styx Pass, and then a lot of granite along Cherry Creek. The creek is more a series of barely connected pools this summer. Camp near the top of the first required excursion away from the creek.
Monday and Tuesday, the 6th and 7th ... we climb up and over the rest of the excursion, down past the cattail corndogs, and as far downstream as we could go, including the climb up and over the weird ridge-rib at the end of the day, the decision to lay over one extra night, and up at 5 to climb out early enough to try to keep the base camp from worrying too much.

If you go,

here are a few tips:

At left is a photo of the spot where it is recommended that you climb a bit, and then stay to the southeast, away from the creek, for a couple of miles.
Where Schifrin warns about the "5600 foot level", make sure to avoid any gnarly climbing — if you encounter any, then it's likely that you're too high.
It's a pity about the "idyllic spot" this very dry year, and likewise about all the missing froth. If this climate stays this dry and warm in the future, you might want to schedule this trip around the 4th of July instead of doing it in August.

Two more of my favorite photos

from the trip:

Many Island Lake:	Heather, walking down a rib next to the creek: