Mid Sierra Musings: Day Hike To Cattle Mountain From Mammoth Trailhead

Dale Matson

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Mt. Ritter And The Minarets From Cattle Mountain

This was a day hike that was two trips in the making. The first trip was a recon with Ben and the second trip Ben, Sharon and I hiked to Cattle Mountain for a closer view of the north central Sierra Nevada than our usual annual hikes to places like Potter Pass, Kaiser Peak and even White Bark Vista.

This is a long 3-hour drive from Fresno to the Mammoth Trailhead. Get a Sierra National Forest map. I recommend a high clearance vehicle with 4-wheel drive. We took Minarets road out of North Fork CA past the Redinger Lake overlook and the “Mile High Vista” and continued past the turn off to Mammoth Pool. Eventually the pavement ends and you come to the ranger station at Clover Meadow. Continue past the Granite Creek Campground. After the road crosses Granite Creek, veer right. (It is about 2 more miles to the Mammoth Trailhead) Continue past the Isberg Trailhead. We parked by the Mammoth Trailhead sign and began hiking the wrong trail which eventually hit the correct trail. If you walk back 50’ or so in the direction you came from you will see a sign stating “5S30X”. That is the Jeep trail that you will hike that leads to Cattle Mountain. When you begin that trail there will be a junction about 100’ in. Go right. About a 3^rd of the way there will be another junction with a sign marked “Trail” follow that sign. The trail will begin to descend some. We didn’t follow the sign and had to bushwhack back to the trail You can see our circuitous route outbound and our correct return route which was much more direct. The hike is about 6 miles round trip with an elevation gain of about 900’ overall.

Hike Route In Rectangle

Drive From Ranger Station In Clover Meadows

Cattle Mountain has a unique 360-degree view. You can see Kaiser Peak to the North. Mt. Hoffman in Yosemite and Mt. Lyle to the northeast. Banner, Ritter, the Minarets and Mammoth Mountain to the east. To the southeast, you can see Red and White and Bloody Mountains. There are other mountains that I could not identify. You can also see the north and middle forks of the San Joaquin River that join below Cattle Mountain but cannot be seen at that point. The north fork headwaters are at the base of Mt. Lyle and the headwaters of the middle fork are at Thousand Isle Lake.

If you compare the line of sight view of Cattle Mountain to Kaiser Peak, Cattle Mountain is only about 12 miles from the Minarets and Kaiser peak is about 30 miles away. You can easily see the building on top of Mammoth Mountain with unaided eyes from Cattle Mountain.

This is a waterless hike and there are mosquitos. Bring someone along who is a good navigator. This hike is deep into the Sierra National Forest wilderness. We saw horse, mountain bike and jeep tracks. There is no way I would continue driving over the knife edge near the top with any vehicle.