Piute Pass rests at 3,480m and can be reached via the Piute Pass Trail from the North Lake Trailhead. For centuries the pass was used as a trade route by Native Americans. In the 1920’s, local businesses on each side of the surrounding mountains moved to have a scenic highway built over the pass in order to have a direct path between the Eastern and Western Sierras. These requests never came to fruition, and were eventually quashed completely when the Wilderness Act of 1964 established the John Muir Wilderness.
The difference between the east and west sides of the pass is startling. To the east is a (respectively) slim valley that is lightly to moderately vegetated with alpine brush and conifer trees. To the west, the pass opens up into a massive basin (Humphrey’s Basin), and is almost entirely barren. The west looks like a “moonscape”… if you can imagine that.
From the pass, looking east you will see close up views of Mt Emerson and Mt George Davis. Far off to the west you will see Wahoo Peak, Turret Peak, Mount Hooper, Sky Point, Gemini, Seven Gables and Merriam Peak.