I’ve been wanting to do this hike and photography for a while. Always seeing others talk about Kearsarge and the awesome photos they captured along the way, made it at the top of my hiking list. The hike, and the amazing landscape and views, didn’t disappoint at all.
This trip contained a lot of firsts for me. First time hiking Kearsarge. First time camping (unbelievable I know). First time hiking beyond 10,000 ft elevation. You definitely feel it with the thin air at 11,000ft and above. Our plan had been to hike over the pass and down to Kearsarge Lakes below, but we didn’t get an early enough start and I also wanted to take time to appreciate the lakes and scenery as we hiked.
Did the hike and camping trip with my best friend Steve. He had hiked this pass a few times already, not to mention hiking to the top of Mt. Whitney, so I knew this would be a great trip since we both have a huge passion for Mammoth and the High Sierras, plus we both are a couple of camera nerds with our gear and such.
The Kearsarge Lakes are in the photos behind us at the top of the pass. The lakes we passed on our way up are below: Gilbert Lake, Flower Lake, Matlock Lake, Heart Lake and the last one is Big Pothole Lake. I liked each of them for different reasons. Matlock was the most picturesque. Gilbert Lake had a cool blue to it and a huge wide flat rock overhang to it that was great for photos and relaxing. Heart Lake was cool because of its shape and how far down it was away from the trail. I liked Big Pothole Lake because of the name as well as the stark landscape surrounding it. Speaking of stark, the whole surrounding landscape over the last 800 ft of elevation gain was like a Martian landscape due to all the scraggly rock and disappearance of the tree line due to the altitude.
Everyone we met along the hike was very nice and talkative. We ran into one hiker that had a massive 50lb pack on. He was hiking up and over to Rae Lakes (beyond Kearsarge lakes and visible in my horizon photos) to resupply 3 hiking buddies with 3 more days of food, and then hiking back to our camp again. Hope that guy got a nice steak or a 12 pack from his buddies. Didn’t see any bears but was hoping I would have, from a distance at least.
This was an awesome trip with a lot of great memories made from the trip and all the photos. Looking forward to doing it again and making it even further the next time!
The Alpha Landscape 
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