Gem Lake Loop, Emigrant Wilderness

Posted On November 22, 2020

A change of plans

The fires last September squashed our original plans of hiking the Thousand Island Lake loop, so I spent hours trying to find a last minute, not smokey/not on fire backpacking trip that my mom, my aunt and I could go on for their first backpacking trip. Luckily the Emigrant Wilderness looked like a relatively smokeless/fireless option, and there was no quota for permits to hike the Gem Lake Loop, so I filled out the permit application online and off we went. The plan was to start at the Crabtree Trailhead and spend three nights hiking to/around Gem Lake.

Day One

We arrived at the trailhead around noon on a Monday. The parking lot was emptying out as backpackers were trickling back to their cars after their Labor Day weekend trips, so I was looking forward to a few quiet, people-less days with the trees.

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Day Two

The wilderness was ours alone the next day. We didn’t see a single person until we made it to Gem Lake that evening. We had beautiful weather the whole day – mostly blue skies, which was a nice treat after the previous day’s hazy skies.

Gem Lake was a gorgeous spot with tons of good spot to camp. We lucked out and had the lake to ourselves, and we’d find out why when we got back to cell phone reception.

Day Three

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I looked back behind me while watching the sunrise and saw smoke heading our way. Within an hour, the lake looked much different than it did during our lakeside sunrise.

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We packed up quickly and started the 9 mile hike back to the car. We’d planned to stay out for three nights, but the shift in the winds made it too smokey for us to spend another night outside. Luckily the hike out was 90% flat or downhill.

We got back to the car and drove to Pinecrest, hoping to find a place to stay for the night, but the whole town was shut down. Turns out that just a couple of hours after we started our backpacking trip, the forest had closed, along with pretty much every forest in the state, due to fire danger. Oops. Ignorance is bliss (when you don’t catch on fire). But it was really nice to have the place to ourselves.

I would love to go back and hike the section we did on the last day, but without smoke. That granite!

On Wednesday, I’m driving south for some Thanksgiving camping at Castaic Lake and to backpack a short section of the PCT that I’d skipped last year due to the Tick Fire. Photos and blog post to come soon, and hopefully it won’t take me as long to post about that trip as it took me to post about this one.