Beautiful fall colors and small crowds (~dozen cars at the trailhead).
Some larches are starting to turn yellow and some are already yellow, at the pass, will probably be at the peak in a week.
While driving there was a thick smoke near Diablo lake/Thunder creek, probably coming from MacAllister creek fire. Once after Diablo lake overlook the air got cleaner. Between the trailhead to the pass air was clean, at the pass looking east was very clear, but looking west there was a lot of haze and views weren't clear. Conditions change each day though.
Trail is in very good condition, no obstacles. Took me 2:10 hours to easy pass. Then I added a side trip, climbing initially NW and then N to the saddle at 7200' (see GPS recording I used). The side trail is very steep and basically cross country without an obvious trail, but tread is stable, there are some faint trails and overall it's very doable. The climb between the pass to the saddle took me another 35 minutes. I tried to see if it's possible to descend north to the tarn, but the initial descent seems too steep. I admired the views, and then headed back to the trailhead. Descent took me 2 hours, and overall time of ~5.5 hours (would have taken ~4 hours without the side trip).
~9 miles with 3600' including the side trip
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