Cartridge Pass

[isaacr]

I did it earlier in Sept 2024 and just speaking for the part where it ascends from South Fork Kings River and ends in the Lake Basin, it's pretty easy to follow the traces, the use trail is obvious in a lot of places. If you're following along on a GPS map like Gaia, the actual trail itself lines up pretty closely. I didn't do the section connecting back to the JMT but I met two parties who had come that way and it didn't seem too difficult.

[frozenintime]

i've gone north once and south twice. it's in pretty good condition with a few exceptions (heading s to n):

-- finding the start of the trail by the kings can take a minute. in my memory, it starts in an open clearing. there was even a large arrow made of sticks in 2017.

-- the trail gets lost in the grass around 'cartridge lake' -- i don't think the trail does the odd dogleg at the north end of the lake as drawn on the usgs map. finding where to rejoin the trail takes a minute, but it's roughly where the line is drawn: just to the east of the creek coming down from the higher lakes.

-- between the higher lakes and the top of the pass has always confused me. the caltopo use trail (drawn from OSM maybe?) is pretty good, though.

-- the north side of the pass is a mess of use trails, but mostly you're just plunging straight down to lake basin.

[OutdoorRandy]

I did it last September going north to south. It was easy to navigate over the pass and then down to the river. We got beta from the Bench Lake ranger, who by chance was on patrol near Marion Lake. When you get to the SF of the Kings, cross to the south side (easy in September, probably dangerous at other times ). There was a big pile of rocks at the crossing. On the south side we found the use trail and headed east about .45 miles. The use trail petered out. We crossed back to the north side. We negotiated an easy talus section and found a break in the trees. Once through the break we found the use trail which took us all the way to the JMT.