Little Shuteye Pass

Little Shuteye Pass is a remote mountain saddle in the Sierra National Forest, on the Chiquito Ridge highlands south of Yosemite near Bass Lake and Oakhurst. It isn't a maintained trailhead with a parking lot and a sign — it's a high-country junction where old forest routes split toward Shuteye Peak and Little Shuteye Peak, reached via a long stretch of unpaved Beasore Road. This is backcountry territory, best suited to hikers who already know how to read a map and a slope.

Getting There

The pass sits well off Highway 41, reached via Beasore Road, the long unpaved Forest Service road that climbs out of the Bass Lake area toward Chilkoot Lake and Central Camp. A high-clearance vehicle and a downloaded GPS track are worth having — cell service disappears long before you arrive, and this network of forest roads isn't signed for casual visitors.

What's Around the Pass

From the saddle, routes fan out toward two summits. Shuteye Peak (8,355 feet) still carries an active U.S. Forest Service fire lookout, first established here in 1907 as the first permanent lookout of its kind in the Sierra Nevada and rebuilt in its current steel-cab form in 1957. Little Shuteye Peak (8,353 feet) has no formal trail at all — it's a cross-country scramble through manzanita brush, granite domes, and ridgelines, past alpine tarns and patches of snow that can linger into early summer.

Know Before You Go

• There is no maintained trail beyond the pass — this is a route for hikers comfortable with off-trail navigation.
• Several hikers have gotten turned around on the descent from Little Shuteye Peak; know your route before committing to it.
• Expect brush, occasional creek and swamp crossings, and no cell coverage.