开云体育

Hello Wandering Jim - Hopefully the screenshots below come through. The trail to Tilden kind of peters out into a fishing trail around the lake, and a use trail up the drainage to Mary Lake (red dots). You're hiking between two soaring granite ridgelines, very pretty. From there you can do a couple things:

1. Yellow dots: Head over the saddle to the north between Mary and Tower Lake, and contour to the west over another saddle and descend via Helen Lake/Cora Lake/Lake Harriet (x-country route, possible use trail) until you intersect the PCT. When I did this stretch, I did it in the opposite direction (came from Dorothy Lake, over the saddle, then down to Tower Lake for a night before heading south towards Mary/Tilden). I will warn you that while relatively short, that stretch along the yellow dots is pretty indistinct and there are lots of little lakes that all look the same. However as long as you are trending west-northwest (and generally downhill) you will end up at the PCT.

2. Green dots:?Head over the saddle to the north between Mary and Tower Lake, and descend north down to Tower Lake for some Golden Trout fishing, then pick up the use trail to the north down to the West Walker River, and follow that trail until you intersect the PCT. I suspect this is a more distinct trail than the yellow dots (I've never gone this way), but just a bit more roundabout trip back to the PCT.

With either option I would highly recommend a side trip up Tower Peak (purple dots), which is a relativley short ridge hike and Class 2 scramble from the saddle between Mary and Tower Lakes. The views are amazing, the scramble is not as bad as it looks from below, and it's a very aesthetically pleasing fin of rock!

Depending on your schedule and if you are camping on this stretch, I don't quite recall conditions around Mary Lake (it's been about 25 years!) but you'll notice a little "bump" on the west side of Tilden that protrudes into the lake about halfway up - that's a pretty nice camp site!