High Sierra Topix

After looking at a couple sources this pass seems to be placed at the Northern end of the ridge it crosses yet I crossed at the Southern end before the slope begins up to peak 12,766. Looking back and at photos of the area I personally think the best place to cross is at the Southern end. This will also give you easy access to or from White Fork Saddle. It is however possible to cross either so use your own judgement.

TITLE: White Fork Pass

GENERAL OVERVIEW: This pass leads between the upper White Fork Drainage and the drainage East of Arrow Peak.

CLASS/DIFFICULTY: Class 2

LOCATION: Kings Canyon National Park East of Arrow Peak South West of Mt. Ickes. HST Map

ELEVATION: 12,300

USGS TOPO MAP (7.5'): Mt. Pinchot

ROUTE DESCRIPTION: Both sides of the pass are tedious small talus that requires a bit of caution on the descent yet no difficult sections are encountered. If traveling East and your headed for White Fork Saddle it's easiest to angle South East over the ridge coming down from Peak 12,064. This will allow you to lose a minimum of altitude.

I thought I would add a couple of shots of White Fork Pass under different conditions. Rouge does a good job of describing the pass and it there are no snow difficulties. ( I went south to north)

Here are two shots, July 2019, after a heavy snow year.
First a shot looking north from the pass. Coming from White Fork Saddle, you have to come over the ridge in the foreground. I ascended the Ridgeline from the pass to where there is no snow and then walked across the snow just above the rocks to stay above steep snow.
This shot is looking up at White Fork Pass from the north. I came down the snowfield to the right, which was not difficult but slow.
It might be easier to come down the left (east) side. Above the snowfield the talus is basketball size and very loose.

I did whitefork this summer and I would agree with Rouge that the southern end is pretty straightforward. fairly steep but any loose rock won't move too far.
We took this approx route

We initially made an incorrect identification of the pass -- it is quite broad and not an obvious saddle coming from the south/east --- more of a long area of the ridge that is a bit lower than the rest. As we were aiming towards the bright white (& very steep!) pass nearest the peak of Mt. Ickes, we headed north from the upper tarns/drainage. Once we realized our error we adjusted our route and headed back southwest towards the correct (darker red) pass. This put us not only at the northern end of the pass, but along the shoulder much higher than the low point. We found footprints at this sandy crossing (I guess others made the same mistake?), and the descent wasn't bad.

Our "northern" option was quite a bit more work than a more direct approach would have been...not particularly recommended. But still Class 2 and quite doable (this was Sept 2021, no snow to be seen).

As a bonus, we saw a bighorn sheep ram at the last tarn before we started our (poorly chosen) ascent, so there's that! #silverlining

We did a similar northern route, but on purpose. While it's a bit more elevation (we were even further up the ridge from lachertia), it was all very straightforward on the east side with no route finding caution needed until we nearly at the ridge where the angle finally steepened and our pace slowed down a bit. The unnamed point just west of Ickes made for a nice walk up for the view once on the ridge.

The west side was a fun sandy boot ski down with minimal talus - only one real cliff band to keep an eye on and then minimal low angle talus until we were on grassy ramps.

If you stay high between WFS to WFP the southern end makes more sense, but we dropped to the lakes to check them out and then traversed to the upper part of white fork creek to enjoy the mineral show. I'd just chalk it to personal preference.