Lake Alpine to Saint Marys Pass

MILES
NORTH

TYT

Carson
Gap
to
Lake
Alpine

MILES
SOUTH

TYT

Kennedy
Meadows
to
Tuolumne
Meadows

ALL
MAPS

INDEX

TRAIL
GUIDE

INDEX

Miles & Elevations

The Tahoe-Yosemite Trail

Lake Alpine to Saint Marys Pass
34.57 miles

Backpacking Miles
Western Carson Iceberg Wilderness
in the
Stanislaus National Forest

The trail South diverges.

Lake Alpine Area Backpacking Topo Map

The mileages and elevations below describe the route if you hiked up the Highland Creek trail, past the Highland Lakes via Gardner Meadow to connect with the Pacific Crest Trail  at Wolf Creek Pass.

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Jenkins Canyon-Tahoe Yosemite Trail junction in Highland Creek (To the PCT route via Highland Lakes.)

The route detailed above now continues South on the Pacific Crest Trail towards Sonora Pass. Or North towards Ebbetts Pass and Lake Tahoe. That's up to you... The proper map to view the Pacific Crest Trail route is the Ebbetts Pass to Sonora Pass map.

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The route below describes the mileages if you continue South onthe Tahoe to Yosemite Trail from the Jenkins Canyon trail junction in Highland Creek Junction to Saint Marys Pass. The mileage figures are measured from the East Side of Lake Alpine.

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Note
The Ups and Downs of the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness,
and every other
High Sierra Trail

This trail guide, like the High Sierras, divides itself into ups and downs. Our miles are generally done either going up to the top of the mountain, or you are coming down from the mountaintop into the valley that separates us from the next mountain. This means that the mileages and elevations between the peaks and the valleys is going to be important in determining how many miles we can reasonably expect to cover any day. This will be instrumental in planning where we are going to camp every night, and ultimately this information will determine how many days it will take you to cover a given distance. This in turn establishes our proper food load.

The terrain between Lake Alpine and Saint Marys Pass has three climbs, the first being the long but fairly gentle climb to overlook Spicer Meadow Reservior, the second climbs out of Highland Creek around the Northeastern End of the Dardanelles, and finally our big climb into unmaintained trail conditions approaching Clarks Meadow, and the route-finding beyond Clarks Meadow which will bring us over Saint Marys Pass.

This section of trail is ended by a difficult climb through unmaintained trail conditions which go "trail-less" for the last few miles. 

Remember this important rule: Every descent route holds many mini-ascents, and every ascent has many mini-descents within its length. Your mileage will very rarely just go up, or just go down. You are going endlessly up and down.

Backpacker Forums

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TahoetoWhitney.Org
The Backpacker's Forum.

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If you have experiences, comments, questions, trip reports, trail conditions updates or pictures and videos of the Tahoe to Yosemite/Pacific Crest Trail from Lake Alpine to Saint Marys Pass, most especially how the unmaintained and untrailed segment of trail up to and across Saint Marys Pass was looking, and how it felt to you.

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Section
LAKE ALPINE TO SAINT MARYS PASS