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Emerald Lake
Thinking of taking a trip to Emerald lake From the Transport Center of Downtown Visalia? My room mate and I did it in a three day backpacking trip on July 3-5 for an amazing round trip price of 15 dollars! (plus another 15 for wilderness permit) We hiked to the from our apartment to the downtown transit center to catch earliest bus available at 7:30am. The bus took us up the windy, very narrow, cliff lined road up to the Sherman Grant tree area. It was so worth the 15 dollars just not to have to navigate that road myself. Instead I got to sit back and enjoy the view from the shuttle bus. The group was cheerful and diverse in age containing locals as well as exotic tourists. We whisked up the hill and past Three Rivers after a few quick stops, the deciduous forest and rolling rocky river slowly gave way to evergreens and breathtaking steep cliffs of crumbling blue granite with patches of orange lichen. Eventually the air became cooler and scented of pine. The iconic redwoods start to make appearances bright red bark in dappled light, seeming to be even bigger by the fact that you can only see the base of the closest trees through the shuttle windows. Adding an other worldly feel to the view. Seen in clearings, surprisingly, snow, is still clinging to small crevices in the rocks sheer faces. The two hour trip was over so quickly with such stimulating scenery. The driver pointed out a bear and my room mate spotted a deer. We got off at the Giant Tree Museum. From here we could get on to the free buses provided by the park. This would make an awesome picnic spot on its own. The fourth of July holiday had the park buzzing with families and tourists. I made the reservations on line and it was pretty easy. I used the link on the Visalia city web site for summer activities. We used Google earth's satellite view to choose our trail but had some trouble knowing exactly which stop on the park free transit circuit we needed to get off at. We had been told that we should check in at the lodge before leaving for the trail for safety; if you were to turn up missing, the rangers can more quickly find you by knowing where you were headed. We were surprised to find out there was a 15 dollar fee for a wilderness permit. If we didn't go there we wouldn't have known that our original destination, Heather Lake, was closed to campers and the ranger let us know how to get to the trail head we wanted. If I could make a small complaint here, a message that if you go back to the lakes your bug repellent will be useless as soon as it dries, which is about 10 minutes of blissful relief. One of the fisherman at the lake informed us that we needed backwoods strength formula with Deet. Ohhh if only we had known then. I could have gone to the store near the lodge and bought a bottle before leaving. It would have saved us a lot of aggravation. The mosquitoes were relentless. If you stopped walking a cloud of them would form around you and attack, making it maddening to raise a tent or lite a stove comfortably. I would usually stand over my roommate as he did something and swat with a towel as they landed on his hoodie and buzzed in his face. I spent a lot of time in the tent admiring the view from the blood streaked screen. They keep a maximum number of hikers per site. There are camp site markers with painted stakes and numbers. We had to keep the permit visible on our gear. Two times we encountered ranger presence. First we were asked to show the permit, on the hike up, which had accidentally pushed under another piece of gear. Later we mistook the bear box as sign of a camp site. We stuffed it full of our stuff not realizing that there were 3-4 individual sites that were supposed to share them. We were a little embarrassed when she pointed it out to us. But, immediately felt bad about it, as we were told that there was only one stake in the area and we had to leave our shady spot for one of the last two sunny marked ones. The park Ranger graciously helped up carry our stuff over to the new spot when we explained that I had pulled my knee on the way up. The hike up required us to go to the Wolverton trail head which would lead to the lakes trail. Unfortunately this particular trail head can't be reached by the bus. The bus driver let us off at a spot close to the access road for Crescent Meadow parking area. So the first half mile was hiking up the road to the trail head. We had packed very heavily. The sun seemed to zap my strength so quickly. I was already tired when I got to the tiny concrete staircase of only a few stairs. A puzzled park worker thought we looked lost as we walked the road down there and told us to look for stairs next to the center of the parking lot. And viola there it was next to a placard for the Wolverton and Heather lake tail heads. My roommate was doing much better as he didn't spend his winter sitting on the computer and eating chocolate. He rides his bike for transportation and has a slender build. One thing is I am pretty stubborn when I want to finish something. The first part of the hike had some stairs made out of rocks some are pretty steep. One was about 15 inches and without thinking I planted my right leg and attempted to lift my overweight body as well as a 70 pound pack up to the top of the stair. There was a pop and a bad pain in my knee then I couldn't get up for a while. After a break some other hikers were coming down and we asked how much more climbing, they assured us that it would level out very soon and even go down hill. Couch potatoes beware: hikers are cheerful friendly lot but, are not to be trusted when it comes to distance. One couple said, “around the bend” the bend they were referring to was not the turn above us that we could see but around another mountain. A silver haired, probably joint conscience couple, passed me going at a admirably brisk speed. I noticed that most of the larger boulders have a small less steep counter route around these and they were picking around the trail like this. So you can be 80 pounds over weight, injured, and out of shape and still do this but, I wouldn't recommend it to start. I have a lot more gym visits before I will do this again. But my roommate is planning another trip up already the mosquitoes are supposed to die off in a couple weeks according to the ranger on the trail. I was moving unbearably slow but it allowed my roommate the chance to take some really gorgeous photos while I caught up. The first part of it was warm and dusty in the mid day but the splashes of blue and orange flowers were a beautiful distraction. Gigantic boulders frozen in falling positions lots of redwoods and a long steep climb. We were told that the trail would break in two at one point. You could go over the Hump but it would be a better view and less strenuous to take the trail around to Sentinel peak. This is where my roommate was not happy. He hates heights. This looked pretty tame from space! The trail goes along the edge of a rock face with a tail that overlooks a sheer cliff. Weighed down with a lot of stuff in our packs made for a unnerving but fairly level walk around Sentenel peak. I might try to come back to this one without a pack and a better camera. The view was wonderful but the pack made the trail too scary to enjoy properly. The trail gets greener as you again climb over a couple more mountain edges to the Heather lake trail. The trail itself becomes more rocky and less dusty. I think this is were I found the back woodsiest toiled ever. A shoulder high three walled enclosure of ply wood. Watch your step if you go to use it as there was a big mess right next to it and no water just a seat in a hole on a wooden platform. The views get more impressive and then Heather lake which was a little boggy and very buggy. Once we saw Emerald lake we were glad we had been made to go there it was much bigger and sort of wrapped around a high plateau of granite that gave better privacy. I think that it was more of a fishing hole. It was very quiet and as I said before the mosquitoes were very bad but the fish were having a feast. Visible through the very cold but clear water red fins would catch your eye and they were vigorously jumping out of the water to catch mosquitoes. We were able to drink melted snow and water we put through a particle removing filter then boil but it used a lot of fuel and tending the stove wasn't fun with the mosquitoes. We eventually began to drink nothing but melted snow after using a backpack and every usable ziplock or container to collect one large haul of it down to melt and use. My roommate spent the fourth exploring the many nooks and cranies of the general are and found little hidden falls. He took loads of pictures before loosing track of the camera a blue olympus fe-340. If you find it please contact him at skawater@hotmail.com He tried to get more shots on the way back with my camera but unfortunately a lot of really nice images were lost. I was resting up for the hike back which was blissfully downhill. I loved the animal life lots of critters came close if I was quiet. A Coyote, lots of birds, squirrels, chipmunks, swallow tail butterflies, and marmots.
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