Donner Pass

Day 73

17.3 miles

Camped at mile 1155.8

I am realizing that we are slow in the morning. It is hard to get out of the sleeping bag, not because it is cold anymore but because it is so cozy. And laying down feels good for my tired limbs. But finally I peel myself off my sleeping pad and begin packing my stuff. I have been packing my clothes in ziplock bags since the sierras. An old habit from the AT where we would have rain every other day. We have had rain once on the PCT so far.

Packing my bag without a bear can is so much easier. My pack actually feels soft against my back again and is a bit smaller.

The main motivation of today was the Donner Ski Ranch which sells hot food and gives free drinks to hikers. It was 15 miles away from where we camped so we didn’t feel too much in a rush to get there. We enjoyed the ridge walk with great views today. The fields of wildflowers were lovely. I entertain myself by trying to name every flower we come across.

Part way through the afternoon, I looked up to see two hikers coming toward us. We had been seeing many day hikers so I didn’t think much of it. But then something seemed vaguely familiar about these hikers. Soon I heard them calling out “hello Cheery-o and Rhino”!!!!!! It was our friends from the AT that we had hiked with who are doing a south bound hike of the PCT this year! They had to start in Ashland, OR and go south because of the snow in northern Washington. So they just made it to us here! We were so excited to see them. We shared our various details and tips about the trail we had walked and vice versa and talked about life since the last trail. It brought back such memories to see them again and it was wild to see the same friends on two different thruhikes! I’m so grateful for these encounters and so fortunate to meet such amazing people!

We also went over Donner pass today. The infamous route into California during the gold rush era. Made famous by the Donner party who got stuck in a snow storm and allegedly resorted to cannibalism to survive. The podcast “stuff you should know” has a podcast in it that I listened to long ago. Very interesting.

Finders keepers

Day 72

19 miles

Somehow, most days we start out with one plan of miles to hike and then in the middle of the day we will change plans to go more miles. Today, our reasoning was to make it a bit farther to get closer to a ski lodge that lures hikers in with free drinks but also has a restaurant. One comment on Far Out (our maps app) said they have large portions of fries so I’m sold.

The terrain today had very relaxed climbs, meaning not too steep, which led up to a really neat ridge overlooking Lake Tahoe. Soon we passed the whole lake and had more rock outcroppings and fields of wildflowers to look at. I couldn’t believe we walked past all of Lake Tahoe in a day and a half. Tahoe is a the largest alpine lake in the world, according to Kevin who thinks he heard that on a podcast somewhere.

Midday we took a longer rest in some shade. The sun and wind combo over some of the ski hills had been kind of exhausting. At one break spot today, I walked off the trail a few feet then looked at the ground. There lay a piece to my sunglasses that I had broken a few days earlier. It is a side shield which helps protect the eyes in high altitude. It was the same brand and everything. Poor person who lost it and lucky me who found it!

Then we pushed the last few miles to camp. We stopped just two miles before camp to get water and rehydrate our dinners. Usually dinner takes longer to cold soak and rehydrate but the potatoes rehydrate quickly. I’m not a huge fan of my mashed potato dinners. In order to get the dairy free ones, they are also seasoning free and no matter what seasoning I put in them out here, they are still a disappointment after a long day of hiking. I can’t wait for my next resupply box that has my dehydrated refried beans!

Desolation Wilderness

Day 71

26.3 miles

Echo lake chalet to Richardson lake through the Desolation wilderness

This morning a kind trail angel named Layloni brought us to the trail head. There was a list of trail angel numbers at HWY 50 on a post and she is the coordinator. She said she checks in with people each year to see if they still want to be on the list and she puts the lists at the trailhead. Some of the trail angels allow tenting in their yard or give rides to airports etc. Layloni said she has been doing this for eight years. We were so grateful especially since she took us to the trailhead at 6:30 in the morning. We had 26 miles to do so we had to get a good staRt.

Desolation wilderness recently changed their regulations on bear storage so we had decided to just walk right through the whole thing without stopping. Layloni told us that there is such a high density of bears in this area because the fire last year pushed the bears out of their normal habitat. Poor bears.

There wasn’t more elevation in today’s schedule than we usually do and we still got to enjoy the lakes we passed. I soaked my feet in two lakes and we ate lunch on top of Dicks pass. Lake Aloha is one of my favorite backcountry lakes. It has a snack drop of tall mountains that seem so close across the lake. The lake reflects not only the blue sky but the whiteish peaks and seems almost like marble.

More of the second half of the day was tree covered which was really nice to hike through the heat. We camped at Richardson lake, there are a lot of pretty established sites here but watch out for the dead trees.

I remember stopping here when we were hiking in the TRT and someone had left a fire unattended. Not the best thing to do in a dry forest!

It was fun to walk through in one day a section that had taken us two days when we had done the Tahoe Rim Trail. Many parts of the trail felt familiar and homey.

Day 69

5 miles to Echo Lakes Chalet

Stayed the night in Carson City with Shuffles’ friends

We awoke bright and early, ready to walk into the Echo lakes area. The chalet/store was tempting us with snacks before Cheery-o, Shuffles, Pebbles, and I met up with Shuffles previous neighbors. We cruised down hill along familiar trail. There was one new burn area right before highway 50 and also around Echo Lake from a fire last fall. The Echo Lake area is national forest and serviced by the USFS but has small family cabins that have been passed down for generations. Most of the cabins survived the fires but not all of them.

After a few snacks, we all met Stu who drove us up to Carson City where we met his wife, Stephanie. They were so kind to open their home to stinky hikers. Seriously, we hadn’t showered in ten days. They gave us showers and laundry, a fresh lunch of fruit and hummus, then a ride to the grocery store! These next couple of days I will be trying out mashed potatoes again and some new “pretend” tuna packets which I am excited for. Pretend, as in they are vegan.

We took over the kitchen table to pack up all our food, we could split large boxes of granola bars so we could all have various flavors and varieties. Then we began the saga of board games! Back home our friend group loves to play games so it was really fun to share that past time with friends out here too.

Dinner was a delectable spread. They made us a delicious dish of lentils, rice, tomato, and carmelized onions as well as a French potato salad which I hadn’t had before! They even grilled some chicken too. Obviously the food was a highlight of our stay.

It was amazing to stay with a family, have some fun playing games, and eat good food for a whole day to prep for hiking more miles!

Zero day

Day 70

Zero day!!! No trail miles

It has been 27 days since our last zero so we hoped to savor this one! We slept in, drank lots of coffee and then Stu dropped us off in South Lake Tahoe. We had a few more errands to run before taking the bus to our hotel and meeting up with our friends. While walking around town, we ran into a friend, Sweetcakes, that Cheery-O and I had hiked with back in the desert. We were waiting to cross a street and saw him across the way. It was fun to reconnect after so many miles!

One goal I had for this zero day was to go swimming in Lake Tahoe! I love this lake and area. It is usually busy with people in the summer but it makes sense why everyone wants to be there! The lake is a deep blue color and surrounded by big mountains. We found a beach and went swimming before heading to the hotel to rest our feet and finish washing out and sewing up our gear. I sewed Kevin’s shirt again, he is sentimental about this shirt and it looks like a trash heap! (I say that in the most loving way possible 😂).

Kevin fixed our water bags, they both had sprung a leak and we need them before the warranty could get us new bags so we will see if our fix will hold on the trail.

At dinner we met up with the other three members of our group who had gotten off trail to visit family members. They caught up to us here in town so we all shared stories of our times apart and what we experienced.

Carson Pass

Day 68

24.3 miles

Today we went over Carson pass. The southern side we climbed up had a couple places of snow that were east to get through. It felt cooler on that side until we went up and over the pass and could feel a heat wave on the northern side. We immediately went to Frog lake which is just over the summit and went swimming! I say “swimming” in the loosest of terms. Really I stood knee deep in the water for ten minutes gathering courage to plunge in. I wanted to at least get a bit washed off before going into town tomorrow, to mitigate the smell. Finally I dove in and stayed in the water for about thirty seconds. People always tell me that you can’t test the water you must just jump right in. I probably give them a dirty look as I have lived by lakes and Lake Michigan for much of my life and have found their method to be inferior. Why try to explain how to swim to a person from a peninsula? (😬)

On the other side of the pass, there was a small forest service visitors center where the volunteers brought drinks and fresh fruit for the hikers! We were so grateful for them and it was great timing since it was hot!

The rest of the afternoon was very sentimental. Kevin and I had thru hiked around Lake Tahoe in 2018. This afternoon the PCT joined the Tahoe Rim Trail as it wound around the west side of the lake! We spotted the first campsite we had on a thru hike! It was really the TRT that began our whole journey of hiking long distances! We talked about our favorite parts of that hike, the wildflowers, the mountains, planning out the days. We chuckled at our perception of “long” days being 16 or 18 miles and our concept of long water carries being 15 miles. Our longest water carry in the desert was 26 miles.

It was great to contemplate who we were then and what we have learned in our journeys since then. I feel stronger in my knowledge of what my body can do, how Kevin and I can take care of each other and work together, and seeing beauty in the things along the way.

Day 67

21.7 miles

We woke up in a better mood today. The terrain we walked through today was absolutely beautiful! We saw giant rock outcroppings of some sedimentary or possible sand stone type rocks. It was neat to watch how the rocks changed shape and view as the trail circled around the bases and through the canyons. Parts of today were through some shady forests which felt much cooler than the exposed hill slopes. But the hill slopes were covered in flowers. There were Woolly Common Sunflower, Nettle leaf fist hyssop, and wavy checker bloom. I love the mix of colors in the flower patches but a camera just can’t seem to pick up all the beauty!

Early in our hike we randomly got some cell service. Kevin discovered that Desolation wilderness which we will walk through in two days has a new bear can requirement. This is super great since it is a high use area with day hikers and weekenders and people aren’t always reliable to store food properly. However, since we are two days out, we couldn’t plan to keep our rented bear cans that we returned two days ago. We have our Ur sacks which are certified by the same grizzly bear foundation as bear cans but not accepted for some reason. So when we had service again this afternoon we took a break with our tramily to figure out our plans and get a hotel reservation in South Lake Tahoe. We finally did get everything worked out and continued on to camp. We camped at a cute pond with a breeze so the mosquitos aren’t too bad.

We managed to get the tent door shut that was stuck open all last night. So we will just use one door now and have to be gracious with each other even more in a small tent with one side door! When we get to town we will have to order a new tent.

Long day

Day 66-

23.1 miles

Some days hiking don’t produce as many words or thoughts for me to record. We walked and walked. My foot started hurting some so I have been trying to take care of it by soaking it in streams or changing how I walk to give the muscles a break. We walked through some lovely areas with some neat looking Sierra Juniper trees. These trees have reddish bark, blue berries, and green needles. It all makes for a striking pose with the trunk usually twisted on a formidable rock or cliff side.

Once we did get into camp finally, we realized the campsite had a ton of widowmakers or dead trees that could fall on you while you sleep. So we changed campsites and did our best to find safe places to camp. Our tent door gave us a ton of trouble tonight. It was so frustrating as we couldn’t get the zipper to close without splitting wide open. Both zippers have been acting up but we thought we had fixed them. Apparently not. So we will sleep with one screen door partially open. Since the tent has around 3600 miles on it now…..we might need to buy a new one.

North Kennedy Meadows

Day 65-July 12

Resupply in North Kennedy Meadows

7 miles

The rest of the climb and ridge line this morning wasn’t too hard and had the added challenge of a couple snow fields to cross with great views the whole time. Each snow field was only about twenty or thirty feet across, didn’t have a bad fall factor, and had kicked in steps already. Perks of coming late in the season I suppose. After a smooth ridge line traverse, well mostly smooth since we got service for the first time in a few days. Texting and waking can be a challenge sometimes!

We began descending to the 108 highway. The trail was very gravelly so we were slipping and sliding all over. I only fell over once, better than some days in Yosemite.

We arrived at the road and started trying to get a hitch. A few cars passed us. Then more hikers came to the trail head. They were kind enough to respect the order of hitch hiking. Whomever is there first, gets the first car. One car turned around and came back for us. He was out mountain biking with friends for a few days and was headed home. Super kind man willing to make room in his car for us. He said he is currently waiting for his work visa to come through so he can start work. So he said he passed us but then thought to himself, “what am I doing, I have time to help”, and turned around. What a good human.

At the Kennedy Meadows store, we quick got in to their breakfast before the grill stopped serving food. There were more people at the Kennedy Meadows Resort than I expected. The owner was saying that families come every year and some have come every summer for generations. There is a campground, yurts, dorm rooms, and cabins for rent.

We were expecting a package to arrive for us today by UPS. When Kevin’s dad sent it, UPS said it would take six days since it is so rural. We waited most of the day for it while hoping we could still make the last shuttle ride out to the trail. Just as the shuttle was packing up, the UPS person arrived and we could get our package! The shuttle driver had waited for us so we grabbed our bags and jumped aboard! The package had our UR sacks in so we could drop our bear cans at the store since we rented them and this was the drop off place. It is super important to have some sort of bear storage for our food though.

As we rode the shuttle back to the trail, the shuttle driver told us all about this area. He said Sonora pass was the second busiest route into California during the gold rush. Donner pass was the first. He pointed out remnants of the old coach road that was built by and for mule wagon trains as they came over the pass. Once we got to the trail head, our group just went one mile then camped. Our group is now minus Tadpole as she is visiting with family. Sometimes resupplying takes a lot of energy with all the moving parts of charging electronics, washing things out, getting food, trying to eat a lot in town, making sure to pack out enough food etc.

Thankfully we all made it out with minor mishaps, Pebbles forgot her toothbrush!

Dorothy Lake Pass

Day 64-

20.8 miles

The first climb of the day was a gradual five mile stint up Dorothy Lake Pass. This pass marked the end of being in Yosemite National Park. It was lovely being in the park for awhile. I had never been this far in the backcountry of Yosemite so it was a neat experience. It was wild to see the geological structure of the mountains immediately change as we created the pass which marks the border of the park. Behind us stood the jagged granite peaks and alpine lakes. In front of us were gravelly red triangle shaped peaks with some small areas of short trees.

We did our best to cruise down the other side of the pass but the rocky trail held us back a bit. The mosquitos required us to keep moving or get eaten alive.

Then we made it to the next mile marker! 1000 miles! Two friends sat at the marker and cheered our arrival as we did for each person who arrived after us. It feels strange to have already been out here for two months and hiked 1000 miles. I feel accomplished and proud of us for making it here! I am also so grateful we could stay on the trail through the smoke. That we have been able to have a continuous journey through these miles. And that we have met such wonderful people and have been welcomed into several different hiking groups along the way.

Tadpole, Pebbles, Strider, Cheery-o, Rhino, Shuffles

Soon after leaving the 1000 mile mark we had a ten mile water carry, which for this section is super long! The trail is already preparing us for Northern California where we will have more long water hauls in the heat. The reason we had this section without water is because we climbed up onto a ridge and went through Sonora pass. For almost ten miles the trail was above tree line and exposed. It was very beautiful. In the distance I could see some of the granite peaks from Yosemite and in front of us I could see the tall red mountains of Nor Cal. There were some new types of wildflowers including Alpine Sunflowers, California Valerian, and Sky Pilots. I love the alpine flowers!

We camped in a grove of short spruce type trees so we could be six miles from the trail head tomorrow. We resupply in North Kennedy Meadows tomorrow!