High Sierra Topix

I have been poking around looking at a GPX and some reports on this not-well-known trail. While it crosses a few good places I am very familiar with, my impression is that it misses most of the higher and more thrilling Sierra moments, kind of like the second-choice trails in the trees that one might take to make up a loop trip. These days I mostly like to go off-trail and also peak-bag, but sometimes I don't mind pounding out week-long trail trips. But perhaps this one should not be at the top of the list, other than a desire to know every corner of the sierra? Any opinions?

The first half of the trail, from Horseshoe Meadow to Granite Pass, looks interesting to me. The second half is below 10K feet almost the entire time, and is not something I would be eager to do. The flip side is that you'd probably have a lot of solitude on some of those trail segments.

I finally found a thread on this:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9651

This thread (not mine) might be interesting, lots of photos
https://backcountrypost.com/threads/the ... 2017.6993/

I was a little curious how last summers fire's affected the trail so I pulled up fire perimeters plus gpx tracks and did some math. The TST goes through roughly 38 miles of freshly burned area:

Creek Fire: 34 miles
Moraine Fire: 2 miles
Castle Fire: 1.5 miles
Shotgun Fire: 0.5 miles

Lot of blow downs now too. Fire then the wind, takes a toll, rough on the trails.

TurboHike wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:14 am The first half of the trail, from Horseshoe Meadow to Granite Pass, looks interesting to me. The second half is below 10K feet almost the entire time, and is not something I would be eager to do. The flip side is that you'd probably have a lot of solitude on some of those trail segments.

After Granite Pass you get one of the most spectacular segments, which is the Middle Fork Kings canyon from Simpson Meadow to Tehipite Valley. But beyond Tehipite, yeah, it's mostly not as interesting (and as noted a lot of it has burned).

Blackout and I did exactly that a couple of summers ago went i dropped my gps on a crossing. From there we went granite pass north went overs by state lakes and the others, and back to the river north. Soo pretty and quiet, didn't see a soul till we got to the crossing with palisade creek. Lots to explore in the sierra once you get inspired. thanks for posting.