Kaweah Traverse

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July 2-5, 2026

The Kaweah Peaks Ridge is a tall, jagged, mostly red-colored ridge in the Western Sierra in Sequoia National Park. It is essentially a spur off the Great Western Divide, but it's peaks reach higher than anything found on the divide, and it's rock is comprised of sedimentary shale, differing from the mostly solid white granite found on the Great Western Divide. By and large, the Kaweahs have a reputation for loose rock as well as being difficult to reach due to remoteness. Mt. Kaweah to the south is by far the easiest peak to reach, as it's entire western side is nothing more than a big giant talus field, while other features such as Koontz Pinnacle have only seen a handful of ascents in their history.

In 1997, a trio of Andy Selters, Claude Fiddler, and Danny Whitmore made the first ascent of the Kaweah Traverse, linking up the ridge from north to south from Black Kaweah to Second Kaweah. They rated it VI 5.9 and stuck as close to the ridge as possible, deviating less than a rope length from the ridge at any given time. They opted to skip Mt. Kaweah at the southern end since it was nothing more than a scree slog and didn't fit in with the rest of the climbing.

In 2012, Sean O'Rourke went the other direction, traversing the ridge south to north and adding in Mt. Kaweah. He completed the Kaweah Traverse in an impressive time of 19h5m car-to-car from Mineral King, essentially onsight soloing everything between Second and Black Kaweah. His route deviated slightly from the ridge here and there to bypass the 5.9 climbing, but still involved a plethora of low to mid 5th class climbing. This route, the so called "O'Rourke Variation" was the one I would take. 

In 2017, Ian McEleney and Kevin Burkhart made the third or fourth ascent of the Kaweah Traverse, traversing north to south along the ridge crest. They had brought a rope and rack and spent 3 days and 2 nights on the ridge. Unlike the first ascent trio, they also added in Mt. Kaweah. 

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I had been looking at doing the Kaweah Traverse for quite some time. The peaks themselves are hard to ignore, as their prominent position allowed them to be viewed from most of the southern High Sierra. My first attempt came in 2014 when Kim, Daria, and I hiked in from Whitney Portal along the High Sierra Trail with the intent to traverse the Kaweahs via the O'Rourke Variation. After reaching Second Kaweah, we all looked at the ridge ahead and said nope. None of us were competent climbers at the time. 

In 2025 I came back to the area with Rob, this time approaching from Mineral King. We were all set to traverse, except on the second day I became ill and had to turn around before we even left the trail out of Big Arroyo. 

In 2026 I once again brought up the idea of the Kaweah Traverse. This time several people were interested. We ended up with six total people, with four of us going for the traverse and two more who wanted to backpack in with us and go trail running while we were on the traverse. In order to sync everyone's schedules, we wouldn't be able to start until at least noon on the first day, so we split the trip into 4 calendar days. We would hike from Mineral King to Spring Lake on day 1, hike from Spring Lake to Big Arroyo on day 2, complete the Kaweah Traverse in one long day on day 3, then hike back out to Mineral King on day 4. 

 

Peaks/Towers climbed 

Peak	Elevation	Topographic Prominence	Summit Coordinates (lat/lon)
Mt. Kaweah (aka. Big Kaweah)	13,808 ft	770 ft	36.52612, -118.47848
Second Kaweah (aka. Grey Kaweah)	13,678 ft	565 ft	36.53313, -118.49302
Bilko Pinnacle	13,450 ft	142 ft	36.53442, -118.49732
Squaretop	13,547 ft	382 ft	36.53574, -118.49836
Michaels Pinnacle	13,729 ft	220 ft	36.53872, -118.50464
Red Kaweah	13,821 ft	2,040 ft	36.53992, -118.50563
Koontz Pinnacle	13,621 ft	220 ft	36.54533, -118.50780
Pyramidal Pinnacle	13,658 ft	222 ft	36.54643, -118.50881
Black Kaweah	13,776 ft	607 ft	36.54539, -118.51587

 

Total Stats

33 miles

15,000 gain/loss

V 5.7

The approach went almost exactly as expected. We arrived late Thursday morning to take care of permits and marmot-tarping the cars, and promptly set off around noon, taking the unmaintained Glacier Pass Trail up and over Glacier Pass and down the other side to Spring Lake. We camped at the northern side of Spring Lake, finding a nice shady spot under some trees but with copious mosquitoes. As the sunset brilliantly lit up the Spring Lake Wall above the lake, I found that I had forgotten the batteries for my camera. Oops...just lower quality phone pics for this trip. 

On Friday, we turned our attention east to Hands and Knees Pass, which looked daunting from below but was only class 2. A ramp on the right side of the pass led us through easily. From the pass, we contoured NNE along sandy slopes to a second smaller unnamed pass above Little Five Lakes. We dropped down north to the lakes, finding the well maintained trail which we easily followed for about 2.7 miles to Big Arroyo. We arrived at Big Arroyo in the early afternoon, finding a flat camp spot near the creek along with several thousand of our mosquito friends. 

Spring Lake Basin

west side of Hands and Knees Pass

It was shortly after 3:30am Saturday morning as four of us began moving out of our camp in Big Arroyo. This was going to be a big day, as we hoped to complete the entire Kaweah Traverse (Mt. Kaweah to Black Kaweah via the O'Rourke Variation) round trip from camp. The first 3 miles of the day were easy, plodding east along the High Sierra Trail and gaining about 1,000 ft of elevation. 

We left the trail at a creek at an elevation of 10,560 ft and headed north. Our goal was to follow the creek as high as possible before we had to fill up on water and incur heavier bags. Once on the ridge, there would be no more water. 

somewhere around 11,000 ft

By 11,700 ft the creek had turned into a light babbling brook. We could see that it went underground above that point, so we stopped there to grab water. At this elevation it was great to finally be above the mosquitoes. 

Another 30ish minutes of slogging brought us to the saddle between Second and Mt. Kaweah. We dropped our bags here for the short out-and-back to Mt. Kaweah, slogging on class 2 talus. 

We returned to the saddle, grabbed our bags, and continued north on more class 2 talus to Second Kaweah. From the summit, we could see the talus ridge suddenly change to serrated towers and sheer drops further north. 

I was happy to finally get off the talus treadmill and start scrambling. There were 3 unnamed towers immediately north of Second Kaweah. We went over the first two, then around the west side of the third one on class 3-4 terrain. At this point Andrew and Parker decided to turn around, not liking the rock. This left just me and Rob to continue. 

The fourth tower we encountered was the named Bilko Pinnacle. Besides being slightly more prominent than the other towers we had gone over, it was relatively insignificant. 

From Bilko we dropped west down a gully, the last 40 ft of which involved a short section of low 5th downclimbing on good rock. It was here that Rob decided to bail, deciding the rock was too loose for his liking. 

I continued on now solo, contouring north around a couple of ribs on the west side of Squaretop. Eventually I found what I was looking for, a class 4 gully dividing the north and south summits of Squaretop. I followed this gully up to a little notch, then turned right and scrambled a short distance up to the southern summit. The views from here were great and showed me just how much ridge was left to traverse. 

looking up Squaretop gully

Squaretop summit

After reversing my way back down the Squaretop gully, I continued north along a gradually ascending traverse back onto the ridge with several towers on it. Most of these were class 4 with some short class 5 sections, with gradually improving rock quality the further north I went. Eventually I reached the summit of Michaels Pinnacle. 

The steep south face of Red Kaweah could be seen from the summit of Michaels Pinnacle. I descended north along the west side of Michaels on easy terrain, eventually crossing east through a small notch just above the Michaels-Red Saddle. After crossing the saddle, the terrain immediately kicked up in difficulty to low 5th class. The rock quality was so-so, but the scrambling was great fun. Eventually I ended up on a 4th class blocky arete which was followed up to the summit of Red Kaweah. 

notch before Michaels-Red Saddle

south face of Red Kaweah

Red Kaweah summit

It was sometime after 1pm and I had a longer break here before continuing. The next section of the ridge looked mean and jagged, even compared to the section I had already traversed from Mt. Kaweah. With great weather and over 6 hours of daylight remaining, I decided to continue. 

The ridge immediately north of Red Kaweah was mellow and easy to follow. As I reached the halfway mark between Red and Koontz, the ridge narrowed and became a series of serrated towers. These started out class 4 with enjoyable ridge scrambling between them. Eventually I reached one with a 50 ft overhanging dropoff to the north. A checkerboard-patterned tower could be seen further north across a gap. This would've been a great place for a rappel, but the ropes were with the others who were bailing. I doubled back a little and checked the west, finding more overhung rock. Deciding that I didn't want to down-solo this impasse, I doubled back about 300 ft before dropping west on easier low 5th ledges and swinging back around to the checkerboard tower. 

ledge leading to impasse (dont ascend unless you want to rappel or downclimb class 5)

checkerboard tower seen from top of impasse

looking back at the impasse from the checkerboard tower

I clambered up the fun checkerboard tower at class 4, then found a low 5th chossy chimney descending east off it. There was a sloping ledge at the base of this chimney, with big air below if I missed it. From the ledge, I traversed north to a notch below the Koontz Headwall. 

From the notch, I descended slightly north to locate the Koontz Bypass, a class 5 ledge that made a gradually ascending traverse along the north side of the Koontz Headwall, rejoining the ridge after about 200 ft. The ledge started out class 4 but reached a crossover section on a rib and steepened dramatically. I gingerly did a few moves with big exposure to get around the rib, than located a shallow gully and followed it up to the ridge. A few of the moves gave me some pause, but unless I wanted to downclimb the exposed ledge, the only way was up. I stared longingly at the cracks that would've taken great gear and wished that I was roped up, but unfortunately all my gear and partners were probably back down at camp by now. 

I stopped on the ridge to collect myself for a few minutes. I was not very proud of what I had just done, soloing on bad rock. The only way was forward now, as there were no good bail points along the ridge until it finished on Black Kaweah, and I certainly was not going to downclimb the Koontz Bypass.

Some thankfully easier scrambling on class 4 terrain brought me to the summit of Koontz. It was an amazing feeling being there on one of the most inaccessible and rarely climbed peaks in the Sierra. 

I continued north along the ridge from Koontz, looking for a gully to the west which would grant me access to the Koontz-Pyramidal notch. Eventually I found one that looked like it would go, but it cliffed out about 50 ft down. Crossing over the next rib further north, a more broad gully presented itself. I descended this, gingerly tiptoeing along a series of ledges in a northward descending traverse, making several low 5th class moves on top of mainly 4th class terrain. Copious amounts of loose rock sat on these ledges, and I frequently kicked them off and listened to the loud thuds below as they crashed and exploded into the main gully.

I breathed a sigh of relief after reaching the Koontz-Pyramidal notch, as this was the end of the 5th class climbing. From there I descended west down a gully for about 200 ft to a wide scree ledge which ascended north below the west face of Pyramidal. I followed this up to a notch on Pyramidal's west ridge.  

scree ledge around Pyramidal

I dropped my pack at the notch and climbed a short class 4 out-and-back up the west side of Pyramidal. On the USGS 7.5' topo map, Pyramidal is kind of an anomaly as it doesn't show up at all on the map, instead appearing as an extension of a ridge north of Koontz. 

All that remained now was the class 4 east ridge of Black Kaweah. This section was fairly enjoyable with slightly better rock than before. I either remained directly on the ridge or just below it to the east. About 200 ft below the summit, I located a upward sloping ledge system on the right side which led to a class 3-4 fissure which wrapped up around the left side of the summit. 

It was just after 6pm as I reached the summit of Black Kaweah, feeling elated. As the adrenaline from earlier wore off, I began to feel tired and laid down for a short nap. 

 

I couldn't get too comfortable too fast, as darkness would soon approach. I spent about an hour descending the class 3 southwest face of Black Kaweah, following a series of cairns as the gully forked in a few places. Eventually the gullies spilled out onto a loose screefield which I plunge stepped down to some granite slabs and a lake. This lake was my first water source since early that morning, and it was nice clean water. 

As I descended south below the lake, the vegetation and mosquitoes increased rapidly and I stopped briefly to put on another layer to protect my exposed skin from the nasty buggers. My headlamp would come out for the last 15 minutes before finally reaching the floor of Big Arroyo. I stumbled back into camp just before 9pm, finding everyone hiding in their tents from the mosquitoes. I boiled some water and shoved down a couple freeze dried meals before crawling into my tent around 10pm.

The next morning we got an early start, reversing our approach over Glacier Pass. This time we took the well maintained trail past Monarch Lake instead of the unmaintained Glacier Pass Trail, arriving back at Mineral King sometime around noon.