A Solo Hike Along the Silver Divide

Warrior Lake beneath an unnamed peak. Note the pass trail below.

Climbing Towards Silver Pass

Silver Divide Trip from Edison Lake Trailhead, August-September 2001

I was back on trail I had walked before, when I was doing the first half of the John Muir Trail (JMT). That trip was cut short by an injury to my partner Dave, when he broke a bone in his foot on Muir Pass. He walked another 4 days before he finally made his way painfully out of the Sierra. We finished the JMT two years later, with the High Sierra Trail tacked on to the trip. Lots of great pictures and interesting stories to go with that trip.

Now I walked the trail again and clearly I was on a different kind of trail. The trail was wide, well used and well maintained. Unless the trail is covered with snow, you never have doubts about where the trail is going, unless your get fooled by a divert. (Actually, there is one place below the Golden Staircase on the JMT where the trail vanishes in grass for a short distance, but that is the only place that I know like that on the JMT.)

That is the summit of Silver Pass, right there, right of mid-picture.

Up ahead I could see the summit of the pass, which is not obvious when you are below it on the trail. The first time I approached that pass, my two trail partners were already on the pass sitting on a rock in plain sight, and I thought, "Why did they stop there? Why didn't they head for the pass?" Well, because, that WAS the pass.