Madera Peak 10,509′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 8:30
Distance: 11(ish)
Elevation Gain: 3,500′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Norris TH, no services
Companion: Holly




Note: I forgot my GPS for this trip, so miles and elevation gain are approximations based off other trip reports.

Madera peak is the southernmost 10,000 foot summit in the Clark Range and the only one that reaches that threshold to fall outside of Yosemite National Park. Although it does not have the same protection as the nearby summits further north in the range, it’s isolation at the southern tip of the range affords outstanding views to the south to Kaiser Peak in the San Joaquin River drainage. I had recently been near Madera Peak when I climbed Redtop, Sing, and Gale Peaks, although decided to leave Madera Peak for another day, thinking it would be a good outing to do with Holly. With a free weekend day, and fully acclimated from our recent thruhike of the John Muir Trail, we left home starting up Beasore road out of Bass Lake. Unfortunately, a bridge was right out near the Jone’s Store causing a good hour and a half detour south to Mammoth Pool Road and Minarets Highway just to swing north again. Because of this, we started quite a bit later than planned, putting us in risk running into afternoon lightning storms. The trail for the Norris Lakes Basin had also been moved since the older map that I had downloaded, and we had to walk the last mile of road to reach the former trail head.

Walking the last stretch of road.
Sign at the old trailhead.

The trail dove into lush forest, and we followed a thinly running stream as we slowly ascended through the pines. There was quite a bit of downed wood, likely secondary to the unfortunate beetle infestation that has spread throughout the West Coast forests. It wasn’t long before we reached the first small lake, Norris Lake, and we sat down near the shore for our first break of the day, watching a family of ducks bobbing along the shore.

Norris Lake.

The second lay, Jackass Lake, was far larger and we reached it after under a mile of hiking from Norris. There were several families enjoying the lake jumping off of short cliff bands, a nice escape from the summer heat down in Fresno.

Lower Jackass Lake.

Because of our late start it was already lunchtime when we reached the lake, and we ate half of our packed sandwiches before continuing on. We reached the junction that led to Upper Jackass Lake, and the trail changed dramatically from a slow gradual incline to an all out ascent uphill, lacking any real switchbacks. I commented that the trail makers sort of gave up on building the trail trying to reach the upper lake, with parts being simply cairns or nothing better than a game trail.

Junction to the upper lake.
The upper lake.

We took one more break at the upper lake and end of our trailed section of the ascent, the rest of the route being cross-country. We started up steep talus slopes to the west of the lake in hopes to reach the main north-south ridge line of Madera Peak. I decided we could try for an ascending traverse to the north in order to avoid some of the fall summits. However, several intervening ridgelines made this a bit less practical than I had hoped, and as we reached one basin above a final upper unnamed lake, we decided to cut up to the ridgeline and stay high the rest of our route.

Working up talus slopes.

It was at this point that we began to notice some thunder clouds forming from both behind us in the San Joaquin River drainage as well as north, deeper into the Clark Range. We finished our late lunch at the ridgeline and sat there deciding whether to risk a possible incoming storm. The summit at this point was less than 1 mile away, however there were many intervening false summits and plenty of talus hopping in between. After watching it for about 15 minutes, it seemed like the storm in the San Joaquin Drainage was staying put, and the clouds above the Clark Range were moving in the opposite direction. We decided to go for it. I quickly remembered that Holly does not enjoy talus hopping as much as I do, and she struggled through the uneven terrain, much happier on the smooth trail below.

Holly hates talus hopping.
A little closer to the summit.

It was because of these large boulders and talus we needed to scramble through that slowed our pace considerably, and it took us over an hour to reach the summit from our last resting point, climbing up into a band of dark black rock just below the high point. I grabbed the summit register to sign us in, finding nearly daily entries since the summer began, a very popular peak particularly with the limited access to Yosemite national Park this year. With our lunches already eaten, we only spent a small amount of time on the summit, watching the storms to the south of Kaiser Peak, as well as some more distant thunder cells in upper Yosemite National Park.

View northeast in Yosemite NP.
View east towards Mount Ritter and Minarets.
View southeast towards Mono Hot Springs Basin.
View east towards the Central Valley.

For our descent, Holly commented that she did not want to reverse a route through the talus hopping, and it looked like we could cut down to Burro Lake to the southeast of the summit. For the record, I never claimed that this would be a faster option, just that it would have less talus hopping. We headed down a more direct line towards Burro Lake, slowly working down loose talus and scree before reaching several small bands of slabs and cliffs just above the water.

Dropping down the slopes.

When we reach the lake, we were surprised to see it not only filled with tadpoles, but at least five garter snakes that swam around after them with their mouths wide open hoping to catch one. We watched them with amusement for a good 10 minutes, never seeing any of the snakes catch an unlucky tadpole.

Snake in the lake.

We continued along the lake drainage, utilizing use trails to reach the upper most unnamed Jackass Lake where we encountered some campers. When we asked them about the trail down to the named upper Jackass Lake, they remarked that they lost the trail on their way up. We would suffer the same fate on the way down. Although we initially found a cairned route at the outlet of the lake, we lost this in cliff bands and brush, leading to our last bit of cross country to reach upper Jackass Lake at the end of the day. It was much smoother sailing once we were again on trail to reach lower Jackass Lake, with the families we had witnessed swimming previously setting up camp for the night.

Back at lower Jackass Lake.

We did not bother to take a break at this larger lake on the return, and paused only briefly at Norris Lake on our descent for one final stop. Once we were passed the final lake, we hightailed it back to the car, knowing we had the extra long detour just to get home. Reaching the car, we decided the summit and detour deserved a trip to Pizza Factory in North Fork on the way home, and we peeled out to enjoy our earned post-summit pizza.

6 thoughts on “Madera Peak

  1. Hello, thanks for the trip report. I am backpacking in the area next weekend and want to hit up Madera Peak. It looks like you two did this the day the Creek Fire began. Those clouds to the south must have contained the lighting that burned up a vast acreage of those woods.

    I’m not as young as I used to be, and hiking to peaks off trail takes a bit more out of me than it used to, would you recommend the route past Burro or just scramble up the talus below Middle Jackass?

    Thanks,

    1. Allen,
      A nice area but not sure how it has fared since the Creek Fire. We were up there a few weeks before, it just got published on my website the day before the fire started.
      If I remember correctly the route finding is more straight forward heading up the talus from Middle Jackass with a little more brush heading up to Burro but less talus overall. Probably a wash time wise.

      1. Howdy!

        Thanks for the write up. My wife and I did the hike up to Upper Jackass Lake on Memorial Day of this year. I thought I would add a comment since Allen was asking about how the Creek Fire effected the area. Long story short, the trail up to Lower Jackass got really badly burned and it really diminished the trail. My wife and I are avid hikers but it took us over 6 hours RT due to losing the trail and setting up cairns. The hike up to Upper Jackass was also difficult because it was hard to find the trail (we also had a dog with us so we couldn’t bushwhack easily). Still a doable hike but the fire definitely made things harder. Be sure to take a GPS with you and set markers just to be safe.

        Best,
        Mike

        1. Mike,
          Thanks for the updated conditions! Been waiting to get back up there to survey the damage once the bridge construction is complete past the Jones Store.

  2. Thank you for the post!! The information was really insightful and I know the conditions probably have changed since 2022 and the Creek Fire but do you have any update on conditions?

    I’m hoping to get out there sometime in the next few weeks or months to try and climb this peak. Do you know if the bridge has since been fixed?

    Also, if anyone else is interested in going with me, would love to have a fellow hiking buddy to go up with!

    Thanks again for sharing!

    1. I was up climbing the Balls a few months ago and the bridge is fixed. The SW side of the peak definitely got hit hard by the Creek Fire, I’m not sure how the east side fared. You could probably find an old map of the creek fire to see if that side was burned. Still worth a trip either way.

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