Emigrant Wilderness: Buck Lakes (2026)

Dates: May 23-25, 2026

A simple long Memorial day weekend outing back out in Emigrant Wilderness. By some coincidence and some changing plans for the days, every day had about the same mileage. We headed out around 6 AM, picked up a permit, and got to the Crabtree trailhead. As expected for a long weekend with good weather and no permit quota limits, the parking lot was packed.

Day 1: Crabtree Trailhead to Gem Lake (10.8 miles, +2,200 ft)

This first part of this trail was familiar, as I was just here last year at Bear Lake. Most of the trail was dry, with the occasional small patch of snow along the sides. There were two major water crossings, one knee deep at Piute Creek past Lily Lake, and a second one crotch deep at the West Fork of Cherry Creek before Gem Lake.

Headed out.

Water crossing.

We set up camp at Gem Lake and got a fire going for the backpacking TV. I had a Mie-goreng and a chicken packet for dinner; this was the first time I had Mie-goreng while backpacking and forgot that there was one sauce packet that was rather viscous. It got all over my fingers and was rather annoying to clean up. Gah. Thanks again Webster for bringing smores for the night. It was fun (and a little messy, but not as grief as the Mie-goreng) trying to get the perfect char on the marshmallows. The most distinct thing I remember of this campsite was the smell of the wild onions scattered all around. 

Relaxing at camp.

Stargazing.

Day 2: Day Trip from Gem Lake to Buck Lakes (10.8 miles, +1,000 ft)

Gem Lake was going to be our base camp, so we left all our sleeping gear and bear cans at our campsite. We did a day hike to Buck Lakes with reduced pack load, and intended to make a loop around along the parallel south trail. Once again this part of the trail was familiar as the Granite Dome loop I backpacked last year also touched the climb out of Buck Lakes.

One of the few larger patches of snow.

Snowman at Buck Lakes.

Buck Lakes on film.

Durston city.

Past Buck Lakes was a flooded meadow that other backpackers said was impassible, so we went off trail to go north around the lake and cut back to the original trail. We scouted around the lake/river and found an area about crotch deep that we could safely cross.

Day 3: Gem Lake back to Crabtree Trailhead (10.8 miles, +1,000 ft)

This was a pretty uneventful day; we hiked back along the original trail since we were unsure about the water crossing conditions along the south part of the original loop since it follows the river given the height of the crossings we faced the previous two days.

We had dinner at Backwoods Burger, not bad. Hard to go wrong with burgers and fries after a hike. Thanks to Christina, Jessica, Tommy, and Webster for inviting me along to their trip.