Backpacking Hyatt Lake, Emigrant Wilderness (2D/1N)
Trip Details:
- Total distance: 13.0 miles
- Total elevation gain: 2,527 feet
- Route Type: Cross country out-and-back
- Wilderness Area: Emigrant Wilderness, Stanislaus National Forest
- Season: Early (early June in a low-snow year)
- Permits: Online permit reservation via Stanislaus National Forest, no quotas
June 13-14, 2020
This trail (“trail”) is not for the faint of heart. But if you have adventure in mind, then you will totally be blown away!
A note on the AllTrails GPS track: Despite what AllTrails suggests, this route is not actually a loop – the GPS track posted on AllTrails is 2 (not very good) cross country attempts to get to and from Hyatt. I probably would *not* follow these GPS tracks again.
Your adventure begins on a trail-trail in the forest. We lost the trail going in, and ended up climbing over a bunch of down trees, but there IS in fact a trail! (It was much clearer upon our return.) Upon exiting the forest, you are now in find-your-own-route-land. Descend the granite face to the creek. There is a nice large campsite next to the creek. A little ways upstream of this camp was a shallow and slow-moving area we chose to ford the river. I would highly recommend you fill up on water here. There are a couple of weak creeks and small lakes (puddles?) on your trajectory up the granite to the saddle and to the lake, but based on the cross country nature of this hike, it is best to be prepared in case you do not come across any of these.
Once you cross the river, the GPS track on AllTrails would have you believe there are 2 options to ascend to the saddle. On our way in, we basically went gradually up along the granite face until we reached the saddle contour line and continued along this way — would not recommend (unless you love bush whacking and the occasional loose granite flakes). We much preferred our return route where we immediately descended the saddle and then stayed low. Stay above creek-level unless you have a strong desire to bush whack.
Once you crest the saddle, it is time to find the lake. The GPS track with the map would have you believe you must descend into a bunch of bushes, or into a weird canyon to climb back out, but we found (by trial and error) that is much more enjoyable to follow the contour line pretty much straight to Hyatt Lake. We built a number of cairns on our return route since we didn’t see any on our way in (and we would have appreciated it). We encountered a group of hikers on our way to the lake that were abandoning their search for the lake. Download the map, follow our cairns, and that will not be you! This was a superbly beautiful location with lots of really cool camp spots overlooking the lake. Not a ton of great trees for hammock camping, but I did manage to find some!
