Afternoon counterclockwise loop starting from Mirror Lake trailhead up to the PCT, to Silver, up the west side of Tinkham, across the ridge to the east summit and back to the TH.
The road is in good shape except for the couple of eroded ruts close to the th, I imagine any car could make it with a bold enough driver, but some clearance helped. No point trying to get to the upper trailhead, just walk the heavily eroded road. No one else present this afternoon.
No remaining snow to worry about on this route, just a couple of intermittent and inconsequential patches.
The trail up to the lake is great with the short road walk being the worst section. There are many established campsites at the lakes, particularly around Mirror. I can see why, it's quite the payoff for not too much effort getting there, was wishing I had packed a shelter along to have the whole place to myself tonight.
Followed the PCT north towards Silver, nice little section with a couple of snowmelt ponds full of frogs currently.
The trail up to Silver steepens and has some scrambly sections, the path up the talus is easy to follow and pretty stable. Made friends with a marmot sunning itself near the summit. A little windy today at the peak but bugs didn't bother me at all. 360 views of all of the Snoqualmie area peaks and of our volcanic neighbors to the south.
Dropping down to the saddle between Silver and Tinkham I ran into the only party I saw today a decent sized group headed up to Silver. There is an obvious intersection, the south-east option headed towards Tinkham looming above is the one you want for this loop. This section quickly turns into a forest scramble, but the path is well defined the whole way up. I was glad to have done this loop in this direction as it would be less fun to have to go back down this section. The final summit rock section is not too bad, following the clear trail left/north initially there is a ledge that traverses all the way across the face, on the far side there is a couple of easy ramps to follow up to the summit.
The ridge walk is pleasant, breezy, and wildflower studded. It's an easy path to get to the other Tinkham peak, the trail back down to mirror is steep and loose in sections but far less so than the scramble up the other side. Looped around Mirror and back out to the TH.
Great little loop with some of the better vistas in the Snoqualmie area.
RT: 8.1 miles 3100ft. gain, a little under 4hrs total.
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