Junction Pass

[Stanley Otter]

GENERAL OVERVIEW: This pass leads between Center Basin and the drainage beneath Junction Peak that empties into Shepherd Creek

CLASS/DIFFICULTY: Class 1 (north)/Class 2 (south)

LOCATION: Kings Canyon National Park/John Muir Wilderness (Inyo National Forest) HST Map

ELEVATION: 13300 feet

USGS TOPO MAP (7.5') Mt Williamson, CA

ROUTE DESCRIPTION: I crossed from north to south in mid-July 2018 -- winter 2017-18 had below average snowfall. From Center Basin follow the old John Muir Trail to the top of the pass. It is easy to lose track of the trail at low elevations on the granite ramps, but further up it is very easy to follow with only a few short sections obscured by minor rock slides on the talus slopes. There is a vibrant community of Sky Pilot plants near the top. The descent on the south side is pretty handily divided into two sections: 1) A precipitous gravel/sand/scree slope that leads 600-700' down to the base of Junction Peak. No trace of the original trail remains, but the approximate location shown on the Mt Williamson quad is pretty much where I descended. Coming down is a matter of a controlled gravel glissade. Going up must be quite a slog -- a two steps up, one back sort of thing. 2) The route down to The Pothole consists of three relatively flat sections separated by somewhat steeper slopes. All of this is Class 2 hiking, no scrambling required. It is, however, pretty miserable going with no evidence of a trail except for some cairns obviously placed for their humor value. Somewhere I read a description attributing this to the fact that it is not well-sorted; i.e., many different sizes and types of rock, talus, and all manner of other debris are mixed together, making it difficult to get a rhythm going. There is certainly a lot of "new" rock that came from above scattered over the snow fields. Although there was snow and some stagnant pools in the upper portions of the drainage, I did not find flowing water at the surface until the flat section immediately above The Pothole. Hope this helps.

I'll also copy the description from the HST Map for opposite direction here: From The Pothole on the eastern side of Shepherd, head northwest. Cross the meadow on the bench above The Pothole. Ascend the west side of the stream that leads into the meadow and head into the valley between Junction Peak and Junction Pass. Stay on the north side of the valley and ascend sand and scree to the plateau near the summit of Junction Pass.

Dennis

Junction Pass is left of center on the dark gray ridge with Junction Peak behind

Typical trail through the talus on the north side of Junction Pass

Approaching the pass (out of frame on left) from the north

Scree slope below the pass on the south side -- pass is out of frame on the right

Upper part of drainage below Junction Peak -- pass is on the ridge at the right (not the low notch in the center of the frame)

Rock fall and typical terrain part way down the drainage on the south side of the pass

Typical terrain most of the way down the drainage on the south side of the pass

Center Basin from just below Junction Pass

Sky Pilot near the top on the north side of the pass

Junction Peak from Junction Pass

[erutan]

I'll post an update for this on the center basin / northside with a few comments before tackling the south side in a separate post.

1) The new OSM based trails (GaiaTopo, CalTopo, etc) are accurate. I wasn't following them (I keep USGS maps for the terrain detail when in the backcountry) and all of the waypoints I dropped line up on it exactly. The USGS approximate is not even approximate - it'll take wide swings away from the trail and the final climb to the ridge looking out over bubbs creek is vastly different. It's like the USGS mapper overheard someone talking about it at happy hour, but woke up too hungover to get the vague description accurate.

2) Nearer the bottom of the basin it can get in a few marshy areas, but it was always clear to me where to go. I found the trail extremely easy to follow (except for one point) - after Golden Bear Lake USGS has the trail swinging out. It petered out near a fallen cairn and I was lost until we saw a bit of a fallen cairn on the other side of the inlet. I rebuilt a cairn (and directionalized it), turned the fallen one on the path past the crossing into a barrier, then rebuilt a truly massive megacairn on the other side that had fallen down. I'm much more prone to destroy cairns when I see them, but it seems worth keeping this historical path marked IMO. For a short while after this it's a little hard to follow but well cairned as it heads up to climb up the little ridge, then it re-establishes itself well and was never an issue.

3) As mentioned portions of the trail are washed out. This sounds worse than it was! In a few spots it turns into a deer path narrow solid dirt path for short stretches before shifting back into a proper trail as pictured. It's in better shape than the top switchbacks on shepherd's pass at the moment, and while there is a lot of steep drop below these narrow sections they didn't throw me off. I was expecting piles of loose talus garbage. This occurs over 5 but less than 10 times.

the trail junction from the PCT is well cairned and right before the drop to a camp with a bear locker (like 10-20 feet before). there should be a fish removal sign tied to a tree in a minute or so once on the old trail.

here's OSM & USGS map layers on top of each other near the difficult to follow section / stream crossing that the trail sort of leads you away from then dead ends

directional cairn pointing at the crossing. not shown are some rebuilt cairns on the other side.

wide angle makes this look wider than it is.

[erutan]

Ok, now on to the "fun" part. It's all just class 2, but that's like saying that arsenic is just a plant product. Here's a somewhat annotated overlay of USGS & OSM with my waypoints that will be reference for the rest.

the red is the steep loose garbage. the orange is the not so bad but somewhat annoying talus. the green is a nice path consisting mainly of two long switches and a zipper out that I (and the tyndall hut ranger Rob) enjoyed despite some trees growing into the path. no idea why both trails go the other way.

The top of the pass has some followable switches, cairned, that leads to a trail that peters out into a sandy moonscape - due to the slope it is very moon gravity bouncing boot skiing. Enjoy it while you can.

I have no idea where the trail went once it gets steep - whoever thought a trail could exist here must be obnoxiously optimistic. USGS says one side, OSM the other. The bottom of the OSM side looks nice, but there was a lot of garbage above it. I found a rusting twisted shovel head smack dab in between both mapped routes. My best advice is to traverse if you have a lot of garbage below you, and then drop when you feel comfortable. I personally enjoyed the boot skiing and navigational challenge - my partner, who has had a bad experience dislodging talus on a steep loose slope, was. not. enjoying. it. at. all. It's more pyschology than experience in terms of movement, but some experience is highly recommended to avoid triggering a slide of consequence. Learning to embrace the semi in semi-controlled will make your life better - you can't fight the loose. Boots and poles highly recommended.

well this isn't ominous at all

the junction pass trail was abandoned due to them running out their budget for replacement shovels

not enjoying life at the moment.

and a second? how many can YOU find on your way down? :p

Once down the talus in the middle isn't the best, it isn't the worst. I also found it hard to get a rhythm, but found it pretty stable and as someone who can enjoy good talus... I can't say I enjoyed it, but it didn't bother me aside from a general feeling of "when is drop going to be over". The scattered bones of fellow travelers helped lighten the mood.

once past the orange bracketed talus section, there's this nice reprieve.

weird 13mm wide angle, but this trail was a trail. bizarre after the rest of this side (hit it at the waypoint trail N) it continued up to a rise I was considering before I dropped a little S, I'm curious how far up it goes

it's hard to see in this screenshot, but looking back up we both saw what looked like a trail going high in the scree on the side. the tyndall hut ranger didn't know anything about this, and I didn't notice it coming down but it matches the higher OSM trail and if it's in, say, something like mono pass condition it'd be a magical bypass of the talus. or it could just be a few scattered sections of trail broken up by loose scree. I'd be really curious to know what it's actually like!

the trail will shortly take you to this very pleasant little meadow where a branch of shepherd creek emerges from under talus. stay to the right here, there's a cairn that'll take you onto the very pleasant switchbacks down

if you're going up, the switches drop out of the trees to the left onto the pile of rocks. this is right before a crossing of the shepherd creek fork (right behind me in the photo). 36.68780, -118.34405

From here it's an easy walk to the many little campsites in the trees, complete with a giant cowboy camp with rusting historical artifacts.

the cowboy camp is still there - we found it the next morning when going to XC up to the trail over the pass.

[erutan]

From elsewhere shared with permission.

“From old map study and Google Earth, the crux of Junction Pass trail is generally like this:”

[Enigmagic]

note: OSM map has been updated with the correct path south of the pass

[stevet]

There is a trail high up in the scree that keeps you out of the talus. I found it (again) on my 2019 hike.

I first crossed Junction Pass in either 1974 or 1975 when I was in the Boy Scouts and then again in 1990. Then as now the trail up through Center Basin and the north side of the pass is still present and easy to find. But the south side is a mess. On the south side, since I knew there was a once a trail I was looking for it and was able to find it. There are quite a few rockslides to navigate however as it slowly disappears.

[erutan]

@stevet, thanks for that update!

I came across the trail on the south side just above the little meadow/pool before the drop down to the old packer camps, and noticed it continuing up through the scree well above the talus though it didn't photograph well. Were you coming up the south and then it petered out as you went up canyon, or vice versa? There's sort of four large benches with short steeper drops between them on the south side below the steep/loose drop - the middle two that I bracketed in orange were the annoying talus filled ones. Being able to bypass them via staying high on scree could be quite nice if it's in reasonable shape for a while.

[Jim F]

Reading this interesting thread, it appears that nowadays the crux of descending from Junction Pass (going north to south) occurs after a pleasant 10 minute descent on barren low angle sandy terrain, when abruptly one begins sliding down potentially hundreds of feet of scree into the Gully.

In the summer, mistakenly hikers seem to land at the bottom of the Gully and discover that life down there is not good.

In his 10/12/21 post on this thread, stevet drew on his experience from nearly 50 years ago when he recalled the Old JMT leaves this scree tumble far above the bottom of the Gully. In 2019 he again took the well identified turn off to the left and resumed life on a nearly level trail.

When I took the Old JMT down from Junction Pass on 7/30/20, I noted that this trail had been "upgraded" with meticulously placed cairns. (Stevet, thank you if that was you who placed the cairns on your passage the previous summer. Or, perhaps, I should have checked them for Ranger Rob's fingerprints!) These were the only cairns on the canyon slope far above the the bottom of the Gully. Typically, the cairns were placed where the trail would temporarily peter out as one approached a small rock band or rockslide. Once at a cairn, the trail could again be visualized.

So when one begins the abrupt descent into the Gully, what should one be looking for on the left concerning the resumption of the Old JMT? A photo taken by HST member maiathebee provides the answer. Go to her wonderful website plutoniclove.com. Next proceed to her TR "Center Basin, Forester and Junction Passes Lollipop via Kearsarge, 6/18-8/23/18." As she was descending into the depths of the Gully, but still high above its bottom, she took a photo and added the caption: "I was so happy I got down to what was a level trail. Unfortunately, this joy would be short lived, as the trail soon petered out." Well, maiathebee needed to keep pushing in that direction. Perhaps in 2018 she did not have the benefit of the cairns.

Long live the JMT!

Jim

[erutan]

In keeping with the purpose of this forum, I'll include links to some of that information mentioned above.

Here's the 2018 trip report and the bit of trail from the photo jim mentioned. I couldn't find anything by @Jim F referring to junction pass aside from this comment on the third page of a thread asking for trip advice on the western divide.

We hit that bit of trail (and found our first rusty shovel head in the photo on my original post on the south side) around the 12,600 line at ~ 36.69117, -118.35890 judging by @Enigmagic's work on updating the OSM path of the old trail, but dropped off of it since there were some easy less boulder filled chutes down and thought it petered out vs switched back on itself.

waypoints on top of the new best guess for the old trail on OSM

YMMV whether it's worth following the old trail all the way down on that last traverse, or just dropping down to the gully as there's no talus on the upper part and it's easy walking until around the waypoint "broken shovel" (where we presumably were just below the trail, doh) and then heading back up to it.

The upper switch was well defined - presumably one would hit that first and it should be followed right until the switch, then they'd turn left and follow it above the second broken shovel head we stumbled across.

In the summer, mistakenly hikers seem to land at the bottom of the Gully and discover that life down there is not good.

I don't think that's accurate: from "broken shovel" the gully it mostly stable talus to the waypoint "cairned solid path down" where you drop to an open wash - speaking for my partner and judging from Maia's TR the gully wasn't where life wasn't good, but the drop down to it on the boulder filled scree. I enjoyed the drop, but that's me, and definitely requires a bit more care than the rather normal talus traversal below - I think it's just demoralizing to have to do that section after the long drop heh.

I chatted with Rob a few days after doing this and he wasn't aware of that old trail through the scree - I tried showing him a photo on my phone but there wasn't enough contrast.

update: https://www.strava.com/heatmap#16.08/-1 ... 99/hot/all I don't really check strava for backcountry (the last time I logged in was in 2014 when I biked more), but it's interesting to see some traces over the old trail through talus:

strava

[stevet]

I haven’t checked this thread for awhile. @erutan I crossed N to S. Any trace of the old trail on the initial descent is gone. There are just a few spots/chutes (whatever they might be called) that look to be used by people both descending and ascending. But nothing resembling the single reasonably graded switches that used to exist.

And remembering my earlier passings I knew to look to he left when I got within a couple hundred feet of the bottom. At first you might think it a deer track but once east of the scree field it is unmistakable though it peters out at the lip of the hanging valley the drops to the Pothole.

For those heading northbound from the Symmes Creek trailhead, does the Jct Pass trail sign still exist?