Colby Pass Trail

[tmorton23]

I'm heading out for a loop around SEKI in about 2 weeks. One of my days has me going over Colby Pass to Colby Lake. I've seen reports from last year that the north side of Colby Pass is pretty broken down from a rock slide. Has anyone been over the Colby Pass this year? The section from Junction Meadow to Colby Lake is one that I am slightly concerned about due to it not being a maintained trail. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[commonloon]

I went over it late last year (October). I vaguely remember traversing over some rocks in a few places low. It wasn't anything too bad. Regarding the section from Junction Meadow to Colby Pass, in places you have to be careful not to lose the trail, but no too bad either. Hope this helps.

North Side:

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Trail:

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[Matthew]

I went from Colby to Junction Meadow last year. With snow covering parts of the pass, I didn't see evidence of rock a slide. However, we did have to scramble around the snow on somewhat unstable talus, which was not ideal. But I would do it again. With lower precipitation this year more of the trail on the pass should be open, requiring less scrambling, if any.
The trail from Colby pass down to the Kern Junction was easy enough to find. Once you reach the Junction area there is a large section of shrubs that grow onto the trail. This area will become more overgrown and difficult to navigate in the future...it was fine in 2019 though, and if overgrown you wouldn't get lost. The 2019 trail crew at Forester said that they would likely return to open up this area in the next few years.

[Captain Slappy]

I did go a little bit off trail in the "shrub area" last year but found looking for the packed dirt/ground beneath the shrubs as the best indicator of foot traffic and a way to get back to the trail.