Big Pine Lakes | The Ultimate Guide to the North Fork Trail

Climbing to an elevation over 12,000 ft, the trip to Palisade Glacier is not for the faint of heart. The journey involves traversing several loose talus fields, navigating rock shelves, occasional scrambling, and significant elevation gain. The effort rewards intrepid hikers with stunning views of the Palisades range and one of the few remaining glaciers in the Sierra Nevada.

About 0.8 miles up the North Fork Big Pine Creek trail from Third lake take the trail to right to begin the climb to the Pallisades Glacier. The trail crosses a small log bridge over the North Fork Big Pine Creek, before starting a series of switchbacks that jog in and out of talus fields and treed sections to negotiate the headwall before Sam Mack meadow. The distance between the start of the Pallisades Glacier trail and Sam Mack Meadow is a mere 0.8 KM, but the 500ft of elevation gain beginning at 10,600ft feels much more strenuous than these numbers imply.  Fortunately, your hard work is quickly rewarded as you clear the headwall and the trail enters Sam Mack Meadow. Situated in a high alpine cirque divided by a braiding creek and rimmed by the mighty Pallisades, the scenery hear is truly remarkable. Continue on the obvious trail to the southwest to explore the meadow further, and catch your breath. This is a great spot to fill your water bottle and treat some water before continuing the ascent. If you’re feeling tired or running short on time this a great to spot to call it day, if you’re ready to continue to the Glacier proceed back to the meadow’s entrance at the northeast where the Pallisades Glacier trail crosses the creek before beginning another steep ascent.  

Depending on water levels and the length of your stride, this water crossing may involve wet feet.  Once you’ve negotiated the creek crossing the trail begins another series of steep switchbacks to clear the headwall to the east of Sam Mack meadow. The trail here is sun exposed with limited shade, but the views down into the Big Pine Lakes basin below are gorgeous. After crossing several talus fields, gaining another 700ft of elevation and hiking for around a mile you’ll reach the end of the defined trail. The views up to this point are spectacular, but the glacier remains hidden from view. 

Keep your eyes open for the series of cairns which mark the approximate direction of the unmaintained trail and use your GPS app/route finding abilities to stay on course. The hiking here is more challenging and and starts by navigating through several hundred meters of loose talus and scree. Step carefully here and watch your holds as there is lots of loose rock. Stay vigilant of falling rocks that may be freed by hikers moving parallel above you! This section is the most intimidating part of the entire hike to the glacier, but it is short and you’ll soon find yourself navigating a much more manageable combination of large talus and smooth glacially carved granite slabs.  This final section of the hike gains over 600ft in 0.6 miles and may take you double the time it took you to get to the start of this section from Sam Mack Meadow (depending on your comfort level in this type of terrain). There are occasional parts of this section that may require four points of contact, but exposure is limited and most determined, patient hikers will have limited problem reaching the end. After all this hard work, you’ll eventually come up on top of terminal moraine of the Pallisades Glacier and be rewarded with incredible views of the glacier, lake, and Palisades range.  Looking left to right you’re rewarded with up close view of 5 of California’s 14,000 ft mountains: Mount Sill, Polemonium Peak, North Palisade, Starlight Peak, and Thunderbolt Peak.  Take a moment or an hour, drink in the thin air, savor the view, and give yourself a pat on the back. When you’ve had your fill of this incredible spot, double back the way you came.