Curiously, the Hockett Trail took the high road—or rather was the high road. As such, it avoided larger stream flows and avoided some rugged low-elevation canyons as well. Competing trails that chose the low road were not so successful. Captain John Jordan, the developer of a nearby trail across the Range, drowned in the Kern River while blazing his trail. The Jordan Trail project continued without Jordan, but not without a bridge. The Hockett Trail, though more heavily traveled, did not get a bridge across the Kern until much later. This was because the Hockett Trail followed the Big Ditch north to a better ford, just upstream from Golden Trout Creek. The river has less flow volume there, and better yet, it splits into several rivulets for a short distance along the floor of the flat-bottomed, glacial canyon.
Campsite at Little Kern Lake
Alternatively, the Jordan Trail avoided the high country, and thereby crossed two canyons of the Tule River. The Hockett Trail avoided the rugged Tule River watershed entirely by following the South Fork Kaweah River to the Little Kern. This route reaches elevations over 9,800 feet (a thousand feet higher than the Jordan Trail), yet it quickly became the preferred route to Trout Meadows, the grand junction of the Southern Sierra. The route is free of steep slopes above 8,800 feet, so even with some snow it is quite negotiable; a “natural” route.