Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Sequoia Park: Alta Peak Trail Day Hike

Dale Matson

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Hike Route

I hiked to Pear Lake a couple of times on the Lakes Trail out of Wolverton. http://midsierramusing.blogspot.com/2014/08/pear-lake-as-day-hike.html

The trail to Alta Peak begins at the same place and the two trails depart from one another 1.8 miles from the trailhead. You can find the entire hike to Alta Peak here: http://midsierramusing.blogspot.com/2014/08/day-hike-to-alta-peak.html

This day I hiked about 6 hours on the trail toward Alta Peak and covered about 10.5 miles round trip with about 2,000’ of gain outbound. Plan on a dry hike, few bugs, and a good trail with a civilized grade.

The junctions were well marked with poor air quality and few other hikers. For those who want a shorter hike ending with an unobstructed view, I recommend they go as far as Panther Gap, which is about 3 miles from the trailhead and about 1,200’ of climb. Until that point, the trail will be in the trees. From there one can see the Great Western Divide, which separates the Kings, Kaweah and Kern River drainages. About a mile further on the Alta Peak Trail there is a spur trail near Mehrten Meadow that joins the High Sierra Trail that crosses the divide at the Kaweah Gap. It later joins the JMT to Mt. Whitney.

I used my Sony A7R2 with the Sony 24-70 2.8 GM lens.