Not too long after dark, the winds picked up. By picked up, I mean screaming. It sounded every bit as bad as when we got hit with the winds at Cub Creek camping with Struggles and Charcoal. But it wasn’t. When we got out and started hiking, we realized it was much worse. Worse even than when we went over Sugar Loaf on the AT with Bear, Sassy, and Good Chip Norris. We were really afraid of getting blown down the back side of the mountain.
I was so glad we stopped and camped where we did. Once we got going, it was nothing but full exposed ridge for almost 4 miles. As it was, I was getting beaten in my head by my rain jacket hood. This is probably only the 3rd or 4th time I’ve worn it on this trip, but I wouldn’t have made it today without it. When the hood almost knocked my glasses off, I took the time to tighten it down. I know I was getting wind burned.
I was dragging a bit, today. Bunny…I practically had to drag today. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because we were off trail for 17 days. Maybe it’s because we continued to eat like we were still hiking during those 17 off days and put weight back on. Maybe it’s because we’re not used to the altitude (we’ve been over 8000’ most of yesterday and today). Or the most likely reason, maybe we’re just too damn old to be doing this. I might be too old, but I still see amazingly beautiful things in nature every day. I sure as hell don’t want to be back and watch news during this election cycle.
We’ve got nearly 4 weeks to do the TRT. If we’d have switched over right away when we had to get off the PCT because of the fire, we probably could have done the TRT in 10 days. After today, I’m wondering if we have enough time. It’s taken us two days to get to where I had planned for us to be on the first day out of Truckee.
We did sleep in past 8 this morning. I was trying to take away the “not enough recovery time” excuse Bunny tries to use on slow hiking days. I’m afraid what’s really happening is that Bunny’s sweet spot is 8-10 miles a day and she’s going to drag me down into it. Left to myself, I’m a 20+ guy, but I surround myself with older hikers. Let’s be honest (something new for this blog), I wish I could consistently do 20 mile days, but I’d be entirely happy with 8 mile days if we could stay out on trails year round.
There were lots of people out on the trail today, but it’s very apparent we are no longer in the State of Jefferson. Everybody (100%) we passed would put on a face mask or would step 10’ off the trail. The ones that did both made me question how well our showers have held us since Truckee. Lake Tahoe tried to not let any outsiders in this year, including people that own a second home here. When we drove around it a few days ago, we saw police orders posted stating anyone in public without a face mask will be fined $100. They are serious about stopping the spread here. I wonder how the vote will turn out in this region.
I don’t normally make hiking plans because, like today shows, they usually go to hell as soon as the first day. This time, I did come up with a 19 day plan which leaves us 7 extra days that we need to kill before our plane back to misery (MO). We had to come up with a plan, of sorts, so we’d be able to get re-supplied. We’re going first class on the TRT. Digit Alice has sent us the food we’re eating right now and then we have two more shipments waiting for us around Lake Tahoe.
Take tonight’s supper. We had chicken tikka masala with 1/2# of chicken all over gluten free vegetable rice. It was a delicious end to the day (and my pack is going to be 2# lighter tomorrow). We were supposed to eat it last night, but we didn’t have enough water to cook anything that extravagant. It wasn’t spicy like when I Mike R and I went into an Indian Restaurant in Augusta and told the owner to let us have it. I sweat so much it looked like I’d just gotten out of a pool. Tonight was spiced just light enough that Bunny insisted on eating her half. We definitely need to turn the heat up a bit next time.
We decided to cut short our revised plan for today. Because the wind is so strong, we didn’t want to risk crossing the next ridge and potentially ending up in an exposed campsite. We found a great spot in the trees behind a huge boulder that blocks all of the wind. It was less than 2 miles from where we wanted to go, but it’s not worth the risk to push on. We’re fine on food. We stopped by South Lake Tahoe and grabbed our winter gear that Digit sent us and we had a surprise package from our handlers at Backpacker Magazine. We’re stocked up enough for the 10 day/60 mile hike to South Lake Tahoe.
EFG