The fifth of six stages walking the John Muir Trail (JMT). This section was completed between 31 August and 1 September 2010; days 16 to 17 of 21 days on the JMT. In summary this section went from the bottom of the Golden Staircase in Palisade Creek Valley, over Mather Pass to Main South Fork Kings Catchment, over Pinchot Pass and into Woods Creek Catchment to the Golden Gate of the Sierra (a wooden swingbridge).

Day 16: 31 August 2010: Golden Staircase, over Mather Pass to Middle Fork Kings River. Made our way up 1,500 foot climb up the Golden Staircase while it was still cool. This ended up being a brilliantly hot and sunny day. We made good progress up the Golden Staircase with many switchbacks which made the walk so much easier. We had great views down Palisade Creek right back to the mountains of the Black Divide. We made it to Lower Palisade Lake by mid-morning and could see the impressive peaks of the Palisade Range. We meet a person from Bishop fishing at the lake who thought that we sounded Irish – and said what do Irish know about hiking. When he found out we were from New Zealand, he thought we might know what we were doing. I have to say I was not too sure if he knew what he was doing. The views around the Lower Palisade Lakes were simply stunning. From Lower Palisade Lake we climber up the true left side of the valley above the Palisade Lakes and Mather Pass came into view ahead. We crossed a couple of creeks and had a bit of a break at the second one. The weather was becoming quite hot by now, and it was particularly hot in the open tallus. The day-time moon was added to the experience of the mountain landscapes. We had another break at creek on our way up to Mather Pass where I took some photos of the Palisade Peaks and Lakes. Here there was an impressive patch of shooting stars (a flower, not an astronomical phenomenon) and monkeyflowers. We soon made our way up to Mather Pass where we had lunch. The pass itself took me by complete surprise, the mountain landscapes with scattered alpine lakes and lakelets to the south was the most impressive scenery I had seen so far on the trail, although the weather may have played a big part in this. To the south we could see the impressive Palisade Peaks and Lakes. The Palisade Mountains were amongst the most dramatic peaks close to the JMT. A couple of people walking a short section of the trail joined us on the pass while we ate our lunch, they were part of the same group as the person fishing at Lower Palisade Lake. We could see ahead to the South Fork Kings River Catchment and our next pass, Pinchot Pass and Marjorie Lake below it. After lunch we made the short steep descent to the upper alpine basin. We headed down the valley mostly in lodgepole forest and decided to camp at the low point between Mather Pass and Pinchot Pass; South Fork of Kings River Crossing. We found a good campsite not far from the creek. I did not take many photos in the afternoon, perhaps a reflection of the amazing scenery from earlier in the day. Day 16 summary: 12.2 miles: Key locations: Campsite below Golden Staircase: 8,900 feet. Mather Pass: 12,100 feet. Campsite at crossing of South Fork Kings River: 10,040 feet.


Day 17: 1 September 2010: Campsite in South Fork King’s Canyon, over Pinchot Pass to Wood’s Creek Crossing. This was a relatively short climb compared with the previous day. It was fairly featureless until we past a few lakelets below Lake Marjorie, then we were back in the alpine tops again. From here we had great views back to Mather Pass, as well as towards the Pinchot Pass ahead. We passed another lake, which was surrounded by orange coloured metamorphic rocks. This was very colourful against the deep blue sky, and the reflections in the lake made the scenes even more dramatic. We stopped for a while on our way up to the pass and talked for some time with another trail hiker who was walking much more quickly than us. He was from New York and was travelling very lightly and with running shoes. We then continued up to Pinchot Pass. We had hoped to get some water in a creek before the pass, but we were running short at the pass. As became the pattern for the next few days, a reasonable sized group appeared to be on the top of each of the main passes, but other parts of the trail were relatively quiet. I guess everyone likes sitting around on the passes for a while. I took a few photos of the lichens and plants on the top. We meet some people trying to track some bighorn sheep. One of them was the uncle of the writer of the fantastic guidebook (Wenk, 2007) we had for the JMT. I told him how I appreciated all the botany in the guidebook. Soon afterward Bob from San Francisco arrived on the Pass, who said he was doing the trail for his tenth time. An impressive effort. We then started to make our way south again and had lunch near the stream in the big basin to the north of the pass. We had a cook up (burritos) for lunch for a change. This larger lunch was well needed, as I particularly was beginning to feel a little short of energy. On our way down to Woods Creek we stopped and talked to an Australian women for half an hour or so. Some of the lower gorge seemed a bit more New Zealand like with the moraines and steep sides. This was another section where I underdid the photo taking. We crossed the Woods Creek impressive bridge known as the Golden Gate of the Sierra, which was probably stronger than it seemed to the campsite. There was plenty of people here, but still plenty of space for us. Bob welcomed us to the site. One of the groups there (who were not walking the entire JMT) caught quite a few trout. The fish size-limits here are much smaller than in New Zealand. We had a good talk around the campfire before slipping into our tents for another night. Day 17 Summary: 11.8 miles. Key locations. Campsite at South Fork Kings River crossing 10,040 feet. Pinchot Pass 12,130 feet. Woods Creek Junction 8492 feet.