Kern-Kaweah and Kaweah Basins

Colby Pass and the summit and boundary sign. As you can see, the weather was still pissed off. Below you can see the outlet of Colby Lake. Conditions would be different when I crossed this pass again.

Colby Pass

Kern-Kaweah and Kaweah Basins via Colby Pass, September, 2000.

The hike up through the switchbacks was actually a pleasure. They were well-graded marvels of trail engineering despite the occasional rock bins along the way I hate so much. In places the trail broke into stairs and sometimes the trail was a narrow rocky path with tight short switchbacks. In other places it was just long easy legs with sharp corners leading to another long leg. As I neared the top the switchbacks got shorter and shorter until it abruptly topped out amid glorious views!

The trail may have been "unmaintained", but the Park had planted a fairly indestructible sign pointing out this pass was at 12,000 feet and on a boundary between Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park. I dropped my pack not far from the sign and greeted Dave as he hiked up the last few feet to the top of the pass.

Colby Pass and the summit sign. One of the better passes I have crossed.

Nearby was a "window" where I could stand at the sill and take unobstructed pictures to the north. Just below I could see the trail snaking it way upward, seeming to almost coil on itself on the steep talus slope. The clouds had returned but confined itself mostly to the north. Far down the valley below I could see a great deal of the way we had come that morning while the rest of the route was lost down in the canyon bottoms far below. My mind compared the memorized features I saw on my maps with the reality below, and marveled. Way off in the distance I could see the Monarch Divide, and in front of that I could see Avalanche Pass where I had been not too long ago on the Mt. Brewer trip. I could see Glacier Ridge across Cloud Canyon, but it revealed little to me. A small rocky unnamed lake I recognized from my map study could be seen below, but it looked very uninviting. Colby Lake looked like a long tear on the otherwise dry granite landscape. Looking towards the head of Cloud Canyon yielded nothing but the vast stark glacier scoured granite field blocking any view beyond.