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My wife and I and another couple just completed the Emigrant Trail trip described in Tom's book. Well, make that almost completed. Here's our story:

Day "-1" -- A night in Markleeville

We stayed at the Creekside Lodge, 14820 Hwy 89. $97.90 tax included. In late September there was only one place to have dinner, next door at the Wolf Creek Restaurant & Bar (the Stonefly restaurant across the street was only open Fri-Sun at that time of year). We were disappointed in the food; the waitress admitted that it was purchased from Costco and it tasted like it but was priced at triple the likely Costco price. The Creekside Lodge was nice and clean and the manager was friendly.

Day 1 -- Grover Hot Springs to Hope Valley

That morning we had breakfast at Ali’s Café next door to the lodge, a small house converted into a restaurant. Very convenient, opened at 7, food was okay.  We asked the waitress if they could make us sandwiches to go, she replied “We don’t sell sandwiches” but was willing to make my wife a vegetarian sandwich and I pointed to the grilled salmon patty sandwich on the menu and ordered that go. Really, no sandwiches? In fact, yes.

The road to Grover Hot Springs starts in the middle of town and heads west. Parking at Grover Hot Springs was not as described in Tom’s book; there was no "parking area" near the park entrance that we could leave our car at overnight. We decided to park well off the side of the road about 200 feet before the park entrance, well before the "No Parking" sign prominently displayed on a tree where the road turned right to the ranger station at the entrance.  As we walked away, I silently hoped the car would still be there three days later!

To get to the trailhead, take the paved road past the entrance kiosk and through the campground to the end, then go off to the left.  The hike up to Burnside Lake was gorgeous with fabulous views down the valley. At Burnside lake there's a dirt road all the way back to highway 88. There were several cars parked at the lake, and fisherman paddling across the water in what looked like inflatable chairs; they sat in the them with the poles and used their feet -- with dive fins attached -- to move around. I’m not a fisherman: to my eyes it looked hilarious, like kids playing in a pool, but quietly.

The dirt road back to Hwy. 88 was dusty and every time a car went by we got coated in a fine powder. Walking on the shoulder of the highway being passed by cars and trucks doing 60mph is not very safe, in my opinion. Not a great hiking experience, but the morning hike made up for it. That day we did 11.8 miles and 2,093 feet of total elevation gain according to my wife’s Garmin GPS.

Sorenson’s is a wonderful resort with lots of comfy little cabins but close to the road; you can hear all the traffic. The restaurant was good, and you may need to make a reservation to get a table in the evening.

Day 2 Hope Valley to Kirkwood

As I mentioned in an earlier topic on this Forum, Caples Lake Lodge (the lodging recommend in the book for day 2 of the trip) was not willing to rent us a cabin or room for one night, saying that the end of September was still “high season”. They weren’t interested in my explanation that we were walking in and walking out the next morning. The nearest alternative lodging is the Kirkwood Ski Resort condos, another two miles down the road and over half a mile in, which meant a long 19 mile day was going to be even longer. But there was no other choice, so I had booked a studio condo there for one night.

The morning we were to leave Sorenson’s, we asked the owner at the desk if there was anyone who we could pay to give us a lift to Forest Road 079, which is almost 2.5 miles from the lodge. He couldn’t help us, but we lucked out when a guest offered to give us a lift. Given that we were looking at a 6-mile walk along 88 to our Kirkwood condo at the end of the hike that day where the PCT hits Hwy. 88, we decided to change plans and start our hike at where the Tahoe Rim Trail runs across Hwy. 89, figuring that would cut out about 5 or 6 miles. So that’s where we started. From that point there is a bit of elevation gain until you get to Big Meadow, at the junction where the Meadow Creek Trail (the trail from Scott’s Lake that is mentioned in the book) hits the Tahoe Rim Trail.

The hike from Big Meadow to the PCT junction was beautiful, and we saw no one, though at one point we did hear what sounded like an off-road motorcycle somewhere off the east, obviously violating trail rules. At the PCT junction near the old Meiss Ranch buildings we headed south towards the highway, and then started seeing more hikers, including a group of 17 college students who were in a backpacking class at a community college somewhere in the Central Valley.

Note: a half mile from Hwy. 88 the PCT goes off to the left and parallels the road for awhile in a direction that will take you away from where you want to go on the road, which is east. There is a more direct path south to the road, it is just hard to spot.

At the highway we tried to hitch a ride without success. Almost a mile down the highway is a side road to Woods Lake. At that intersection we lucked out and a kindly couple agreed to give us a lift to Kirkwood, saving us a very lengthy walk along the highway.

So our total hike for that day was 9.6 miles with an elevation gain 1,760. If we had not gotten rides at the beginning and end of our hike, and if we had had taken the route described in the book, we probably we have had to walk over 22 miles (because we were staying at Kirkwod and not Caples Lake) and our elevation gain would have been greater. 

Our condo at Kirkwood was a typical ski resort accommodation: small but with a full kitchen and a view of adjacent buildings. It had no charm, but it was comfortable.

Day 3 Kirkwood to Silver Lake (well, almost)

That morning we debated the alternatives for the start of the hike: walk back to Hwy 88 from our Kirkwood condo then over to Caples Lake to pick up the Emigrant Trail at the dam as described in the book, or walk up the valley of the ski resort and over the southeast ridge to the trail, saving two or three miles. We choose the latter. Our route began where the Kirkwood Creek goes below the resort road, near the general store. Turn right and you will see the tow rope for the “bunny hill” where little kids learn to ski. At the end of the tow rope is a trail that starts up the hill. Follow that trail to a dirt road, take the road a few hundred feet and the trail continues off to the right to the top of the where it meets the dirt road again at the ridge (elevation 8475 on our GPS).

At that point my “South Lake Tahoe Basin Recreation Topo Map” (copyright 2006) failed me. It showed a half-mile section of dirt road running along the ridge crest but it didn’t connect to anything at either end. That made no sense, but it seemed to be the road we were standing on. The Emigrant Trail appeared to be several hundred feet below us down the other side of the ridge, according to the map. All we had to do was walk downhill to find it. And 25 minutes later, we did, but there were some anxious minutes in there. In fact, at some points the trail is not very distinct, so you have to be constantly scanning left and right to make sure you don’t miss it.

Turning right we continued south on what we decided must be the Emigrant Trail. It wasn’t long before, to our surprise, the trail ended at a dirt road! We could only assume it was the same road we had crossed over less than an hour before. But the road was not on our map! The map only showed a dashed trail line. I promised myself that in the future I would only use USGS topo maps, which are what I always use on backpacking trips.

We followed the dirt road for a mile or so to where it ended at the Chair 4 ski lift. Just before the lift there was a small USFS sign on a tree 40 feet off to the right off the road, but no sign of a trail. We checked for signs of trail at the end of the road but there were definitely no trails starting there, so we went back to the tree with the sign and eventually picked up a narrow trail about 30 feet beyond it that disappeared into some brush. Thinking that must be Emigrant Trail we followed it up the small valley with the lift line off to our right. In a few hundred feet we came to sign with some trail history and were sure we were on the right track.

The trail continued up the valley and we started to come out of the trees almost halfway up to the ridge. We found another USFS trail sign on a tree and a very old rectangular metal trail sign that faintly showed "Emigrant" and was embedded into an adjacent tree trunk (the sign had been there so long that the tree had grown around it and distorted it). The sign had arrows on each side that seemed to indicate that the trail turned left and went across the meadow through the brush by the creek, though there was no visual evidence of a trail going that direction. And the dirt trail we had been following continued up the valley off to our right as we faced the creek.

Checking the map, it did show a 90 degree turn in the trail at the 9,000 foot line, which is about what our GPS showed as our current elevation. So we found a way through the brush across the creek, and then spent quite a long time searching for more USFS signs or any sign of a trail. We could not find any sign of a trail. We are experienced hikers with backpacking experience: we know what a trail looks like!

By then it was 1pm. We were hungry, and we had at least 6 miles to go to Kit Carson Lodge. We decided to eat lunch and think about the situation. Our conclusion was that the trail was not well maintained, it had become overgrown, and while we might find it if we continued our search, it would probably be a wiser course of action to retrace our route back to Kirkwood and get a ride to the Kit Carson Lodge. The only other alternative was to continue up the valley to the top of the ridge just to the southeast of Thimble Peak and then drop down to the Horse Canyon Trail on the other side. But the map showed the other side of the ridge was fairly steep, so it would be slow going and possibly unsafe. We dismissed that option and turned back. This time we followed the dirt road all the way back to the ridgeline where we had set off downhill and cross country to pick up the trail and it was much quicker. If our map had been accurate and shown the road correctly we would have stayed on it at that morning and made better time. At Kirkwood we got lucky and found a ride to Kit Carson Lodge.

Our room at Kit Carson Lodge had a beautiful view of the lake, but it was small and there was not even a coffee maker in the room, to say nothing of a microwave or fridge. Signs in the room said not to plug in a hair dryer because it would blow a fuse, and that the lodge generated its own power so there was not a lot available. I thought this was odd since Sorenson’s offered full kitchenettes and there was no power line running from the road to Sorenson’s. My opinion is the $175/night Kit Carson Lodge charge was on the high side, and what we were paying for was the lake view. On the plus side, because it was well away from the highway, it was pretty quiet.

Conclusion

This three-day trip had its ups and downs. The weather was perfect, we enjoyed the hiking, but disliked the miles spent walking along the highway. Our inability to continue on the trail on day 3 was disappointing but we still had an enjoyable hike that day. We plan to come back to the area next year, stay at Sorenson’s (clearly the nicest of the three places we stayed) for several days and explore other day hike routes. And we plan to do a day hike taking the Horse Canyon Trail east from Kit Carson Lodge to the Emigrant Pass trail and hopefully clarify the route of the trail back to the Kirkwood ski area so we can understand how and why we lost it above the Chair 4 ski lift!