A quiet pullout near the summit, one afternoon in July.
Sonora Pass
Sierra Nevada, California
The signal starts to go before you reach the summit. The road narrows, climbs, and doubles back on itself more times than you can count. Somewhere past Kennedy Meadows, the day stops being about anything but the mountains.
There's no reason to hurry up here — there's nowhere left to be. Waterfalls run beside the road. The quiet gets bigger the higher you climb.
9,624 ft at the summit · Closed to traffic roughly November to May
Maybe that's part of why summer up here feels the way it does — you only get so many chances a year to disappear like this.
A voice from Sonora Pass
Cedar Ridge is about coming home. Sonora Pass is about getting away.
We don't drive it to get anywhere. Several times every summer, we'll just go — no schedule, no errands, no destination beyond the mountains themselves. It's about an hour from Sonora, and somewhere along that hour, the day stops being about anything except being there.
We'll stop at Sardine Falls, pull over just to listen to the creek, take in the view from up around Leavitt Peak, and find some quiet pullout where you can just sit for a while. Kennedy Meadows is right there near the base if you want to stop, but if I'm honest, that's never really been the reason we go.
What stays with me every time is thinking about the people who crossed these same mountains looking for a completely different future during the Gold Rush. We're up there for peace, for a day off the grid. They were up there chasing everything. Same mountains, same climb, two completely different reasons to be there.
That's Sonora Pass, for us. Not a place we're going. A place we go to disappear for a while.
Along this journey
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