The scenery really picked up today. I got another early start, with a goal to make it to the Palisade Creek valley below the Golden Staircase. This would mean clearing another high pass, Muir Pass (11,990’), which was a pretty gradual climb up before a steep descent into LeConte Canyon.

Looking back down the San Joaquin River Valley.

The view just out the front door of the McClure Meadow Ranger Station. Here, the Evolution River winds lazily through a meadow in a valley of high peaks, with The Hermit and the path up to Muir Pass at the head of the valley.

Wild Lupine flowers with Mount Spencer and Mount Huxley behind.

The next lake up the climb towards Muir Pass: Sapphire Lake with Mount Huxley standing tall in the background.

Wanda Lake. The vegetation thinned approaching the crest of Muir Pass.

The view north from Muir Pass. The larger lake is Wanda Lake. For some reason, the peaks to the west of this area (the Mount Goddard area) were composed of much darker rock than the granite peaks all around, which provides a nice contrast.

The hut at the crest of Muir Pass. They didn’t serve beer.

The view down to LeConte Canyon. Another drop from almost 12,000’ down to almost 8,000’ at the confluence of Palisade Creek and the Middle Fork of the Kings River.

Descending Muir Pass, I starting thinking I was getting close to the famous dinosaur rock, just based on having read too many trip reports. Sure enough, I stumbled upon it about 20 miles into the day.

As the trail dropped deeper and deeper into LeConte Canyon, the surrounding peaks seemed to rise higher and higher. The peaks to the west had particularly dramatic faces dropping thousands of feet down to the valley.

When the valley began to flatten, the river slowed and oxbowed out in places, which formed these deep swimming holes in alpine meadows. This seemed like a great place to camp, but with a seven day finish in sight, I decided to keep pushing.

The Golden Staircase is a somewhat infamous section of the trail just below Palisade Lakes where the trail climbs over 1,500’ in a bit under 3 miles. The trail is mostly stone stairs here, and passes through a few narrow gaps in the rock with very tight switchbacks. Many find this to be one of the tougher sections of trail. After hiking over 32 miles, it was pretty brutal. But there aren’t any places to camp along this section, so my options were to descend back to the river valley and deal with the mosquitoes and climb this section tomorrow, or to push on to Palisade Lakes. I opted for the latter, making it to the lakes just before sunset. Here’s a view looking back down the Palisade Creek Canyon during the peak of the golden hour.

The Palisades are one of the highest sub-ranges of the Sierra, with six peaks higher than 14,000’. Here are Norman Clyde Peak, Middle Palisade, and Disappointment Peak bathed in evening alpenglow. Being able to catch sunset over my favourite sub-range of the Sierra was a real pick-me-up after a long day.