TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

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Love the Sierra
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TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

Post by Love the Sierra »

I do not have on online photo service, so I have reduce the picture size and posted as attachments. They were prettier before I reduced them, but I hope that all of you can enjoy them anyway. Please see my creek crossing and mosquito reports for those details.
7/5: Kennedy Meadows to Relief Creek crossing
The trail was beautiful with magnificent views of the mighty river and creeks cascading through the canyon. At one point in the climb, you are hiking next to a granite wall and the river is roaring on your other side. The echo off of the granite was incredible and it sounded like you had two rivers flowing on either side. Pretty awesome phenomenon. The forest is beautiful with Juniper, Aspens and mixed conifers.
7/6: Relief Creek crossing to Wire lakes
Magnificent Red Fir and mixed conifer forest. There are wonderful views of the gorgeous lava formations along side of the granite mountains. Lower and Upper Relief Valleys were a wonderland of flowers blooming in all shapes and colors!! Just spectacular and absolutely the highlight of the day.
Relief Creek.jpg
Lillies.jpg
Emigrant wildflowers.jpg
Lower relief Valley.jpg
Upper Relief Valley.jpg
7/7: Buck Lake
Got to lovely Buck Lake by lunch time and explored around all of the peninsulas and swam and played in the lake. The water was warm and flowers blooming here as well!
7/8: Layover day - hiked round trip to Emigrant lake
Buck Meadow was beautiful with multiple shades of green grasses, trees and willows. Hiking up to Emigrant was through a very pretty conifer forest (I think Hemlocks). Emigrant lake was also bursting with flowers and was quite gorgeous. It was extremely hot, I would estimate around 80 degrees. That night, the highs were in the upper 50's and I couldn't even get into my sleeping bag. The heat wave was on! I had gotten pretty dismal mosquito reports about the area around Saucer Meadow so I decided to make this an out and back hike, not the originally intended loop. Buck lake was truly a safe haven! Now I had the added problem of the heat. I decided to make a very early departure the next day and hike back to the first night's campsite at the Relief Creek crossing.
7/9 Buck Lake to Relief Creek crossing
My plan worked and we got all of the elevation gain done by 11:00am. We were around, if not over 80 degrees. We once again admired the lovely conifer forest on the way to Salt Lick Meadow and stopped to watch some small, bright yellow birds flitting in the trees. Enjoyed the walk through Upper and Lower Relief Valleys and made it to Relief Creek in plenty of time to explore around and play in the creek.
7/10 Relief Creek to Kennedy Meadows
HOT!!! Thinking that it was a short, easy hike back, I dawdled around camp and left late. Met some hikers by Grouse Creek and talked for a time. There were LOTS of youth groups packing in, I would estimate a total of about 50 kids. What a mistake it was to go so slowly and start so late- That last couple miles, exposed on the road, were a killer, of heat. I worried about my dog and kept dousing her with water. The ground was so hot that I had to booty her feet but that prevented cooling through her feet. Every time we got near a tree, we would stop just to let her cool down a bit. At one point, she actually threw up and I was concerned for her. Anyway, we made it safe and sound.
All in all a wonderful trip despite the heat and the mosquitos.
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Last edited by Love the Sierra on Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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balzaccom
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Re: TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

Post by balzaccom »

Great notes--and good to hear about the mosquitoes. We love that area, but I agree with you about the last couple of miles back into Kennedy Meadows. Low elevation, hot and dusty!
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Re: TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

Post by maverick »

Looking forward to the wildflower shots, thank you for this teaser! :)
Professional Sierra Landscape Photographer

I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.

Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member: http://reconn.org
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Re: TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

Post by Love the Sierra »

Hi,
I actually sent you and Eric a PM asking exactly how to post the pictures, but it is sitting in the Outbox. :(
Obviously, I still haven't exactly figured out how to work this site. Sorry to ask this here, in the post, but could you please let me know exactly how to embed the pics into the TR with captions? Also, do I need to reduce the size of the pictures first? If so, how many KB? (My son did it for me a couple of years ago but I really need to learn how to do it myself.)
Finally... How do I get PM from my outbox to be sent?
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Re: TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

Post by maverick »

Professional Sierra Landscape Photographer

I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.

Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member: http://reconn.org
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Re: TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

Post by rlown »

Love the Sierra wrote: Finally... How do I get PM from my outbox to be sent?


The outbox remains full until you delete your message or the person(s) you've sent messages to reads them.
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Re: TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

Post by Love the Sierra »

UGGG - So sorry I reduced the image size so much. I hope that you guys are able to enjoy it anyway.
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Re: TR: Relief Valley - Buck Lake - Emigrant Lake 7/5 -7/10

Post by gary c. »

Your pictures are fine. Thanks for putting in the effort.
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