Did a quick overnight on the Middlefork Buckskin loop, starting with the middle fork leg, camping at Buckskin lake, then heading back to the car. Buckskin ridge was the highlight of the trip, and was a very fun hike with great views.
Road/TH: I feel like the road to Harts pass is well detailed so I won't talk much, but it does have one very narrow section just with pullouts I was glad I didn't run into any cars going the other way. The trailhead is basically just parking along a hairpin turn, when we arrived at the trailhead Sunday morning there were probably 30 cars crammed along the road. Luckily someone had left and there was one parallel parking spot open with good space so we didn't have to park precariously.
Trail Conditions: Middle fork trail was in great shape, easy to follow, brush wasn't terrible, and grade was such that we could make great time hiking down it. Buckskin trail was generally in good condition, often a bit brushy, but no downed trees to step over (some very large downed trees across the trail had well established detours). Some logs looked freshly cut this summer. For trail routing, I should note that the Caltopo, forest service, and Gaia maps had the wrong route for Buckskin trail north of Buckskin lake to the junction with Middle Fork Trail. The trail in this section was a bit overgrown so I thought we had taken a game path and the GPS showed us 500 ft off the trail. However, that was the trail and 30 minutes of bushwhacking around looking for the trail yielded nothing. It appears that over the weekend someone updated open street map with the correct trail since now that I snap the route on Gaia GPS it shows the correct trail, whereas when I made the route last week it was still snapping to the incorrect trail.
Campsites: The camping at Buckskin lake was fine, nice views of the lake but there were two other parties there, and it was SO dusty. The wind picked up in the morning and blew tons of dust into our coffee and oatmeal. If I was to stay in the area again I think the Point Creek basin looked much nicer. Camps appeared less dusty and I'm a fan of the sub-alpine views. Camping also seemed like it would be nice at Silver lake, more of the perimeter of the lake is flat so there's room to spread out and give space to other parties.
Bugs: Got bit once but really not bad, wind mostly kept them down
Snow Conditions: Completely snow free
Hiker Density: After seeing 30+ cars at the trailhead thought we would see quite a bit of people, but only saw three parties of hikers the first day, two other parties at camp, and two parties of hikers the second day. Seems like the vast amount of trails in the area spread everyone out.
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