Kings River/Mather Pass junction to Kings River camping area over Mather Pass

Mileage: 15.5 miles (24.9 km), total 160.3 miles (258.0 km)

Today was a super hard day over Mather Pass. We packed up nice and early this morning as we knew we would have a tough day and we wanted to take it slow and steady through Deer Meadow and up the first part of the climb through the Golden Staircase.

The day started with a gentle climb up the lower part of the valley. This was a really pleasant relaxing walk ahead of what we knew would get considerably harder as we progressed.

Eventually, we climbed past the tree line and started to make our way up steeper and steeper sections as we approached the Golden Staircase. We had Palisade Creek on our right which was draining from the Palisade Lakes far above us.

We then hit the Golden Staircase and the day became much steeper and more difficult. There were some switchbacks as we climbed up which made the engineering feat that is the JMT easier to appreciate. We were out of breath most of the way up. We passed some trail maintenance volunteers who were out doing work on the path and hauling rocks. It was hard enough walking through this section without having to work as well.

Eventually the Golden Staircase flattened out and the rocky terrain curved around to the Palisade Lakes from where we could finally see Mather Pass itself. Climbing to here had felt like doing a pass by itself and it was hard to believe we were only really at the access point for Mather itself.

The Palisade Lakes were really beautiful in a long elongated shape mirroring the shape of the valley. We stopped to filter water and talked to a hiker also doing the same. It was clear there was some weather coming in as we started to see droplets of rain on the surface of the lakes. Mather was very exposed and we were worried about our ability to get over the pass before any thunderstorm hit. We decided to go for it and book it as hard as we could to the top of Mather.

The clouds were hovering menacingly as we climbed higher and we were waiting for the first rumbles of thunder to hit. We had some flat terrain, although rocky underfoot, and headed higher crossing over Palisade Creek with some easy rock hops on the way.

We eventually left treeline behind and ascended into more and more barren terrain. The altitude made it feel like sucking air through a straw as we climbed and we took it nice and slow along the switchbacks up Mather. We could see hikers way above us on the switchbacks which made it a bit discouraging seeing how far we had to go. We were conscious of the weather which was crossing the valley behind us.

Finally, we reached the final switchback and then we crested the top of Mather Pass. This was undoubtedly the toughest pass we had done to date on the JMT and we felt an achievement to get to the top at a good pace. We took a quick break at the top taking in the breathtaking and expansive views down to the Palisades below us.

As we descended, the terrain below us was really different to what we had seen climbing up to Mather. We could see the JMT snaking its way down in between lakes into a beautiful valley past some alpine lakes. We headed down and had a quick break by one the lakes and got ourselves out of the wind. It was freezing and the down jacket was on as soon as I’d been sitting for a few minutes.

We then headed down quickly before we got too cold down and finally hit the treeline on our way down. We passed plenty of PCT thru hikers on the way down going up Mather. We understand this is the tail end of the herd and these guys are up against the clock to reach Canada before the snow hits Washington. We had a chat with them and wished them all the best in the rest of their journey.

We finally reached our campsite for the night alongside the south fork of the Kings River. It was a beautiful spot and one thing for sure is that it would be a good sleep after a physically tough day.  Tomorrow is Pinchot Pass….