Beep, Beep…”I’m not ready to get up!”…”OK”…snooze
Beep, Beep…”I’ll walk faster if we can snooze again”…”OK”…snooze
Beep, Beep…”If I hit the snooze again, you’d better be willing to run today”…”I’m up!”
The walk up from Gray Lake really wasn’t that bad. Part of the reason may have been Bunny’s promise to move faster today. Our total (gross miles) will be close to 18 today, making this the longest day we’ve hiked since we were in the Trinity Alps. Once we made it back up to the rim, we’ve got a predominately downhill stretch for over 10 miles.
Lake Tahoe greeted us once we were back up. It was a relief to see it hadn’t drained over night. I read at the Truckee Dam that Lake Tahoe has multiple faults running through and underneath it. As I’ve mentioned, Tahoe is not a volcanic cone like Crater Lake. Tahoe is actually the result of land slides and plate tectonics blocking off a water exit path until it got deep enough to rise to the rim—Truckee River. Scientists have determined that with the presence of multiple fault lines combined with the volume of water in the lake (over 40 trillion gallons), tsunamis are theoretically possible.
For the sake of all the families with multi-million dollar homes along the shore of Lake Tahoe, I’m going to make an offer, out of the kindness of my heart, to save the lives of your precious loved ones. I will offer $0.01/$100 assessed value. This offer is only valid for the first taker, but imagine the peace of mind the owner of that $10M home will feel knowing that he has saved the lives of his children (and their innocent puppies with big sad eyes). Not only will lives be saved, he will pocket $100K for that ‘death trap’ on the shore. Hell, I’ll even let him keep his boat docked there. I’m just that sweet of a guy.
We saw more people today than we have the entire 3 weeks we’ve been hiking the TRT. The first person we met was just a couple miles out of the box for us. He took one look at us and asked “Are you starting or finishing up?” We said finishing tomorrow. He said “I’m finishing today.” This was Steve.
Steve is the only other person we’ve met so far that is finishing the TRT this year. He has spent the summer doing 20+ mile days on the weekends. He and his wife, Tracy, moved to Reno about 4 years ago and he is wanting to explore all the trails in the area. If he can pull a loop off, he will, but most times Steve parks at a trailhead and then Tracy will pick him up at the end of the day and take him back to his truck. We talked to Steve for well over 45 minutes.
When we started telling him our story, he interrupted us and asked if we were from Missouri. When we said we were, he asked if we had gotten forced off the PCT because of fires. We did. Steve told us he had met a couple of women 2 weeks ago in Desolation Wilderness that told him about us. He said we were inspiring which is a guaranteed way for us to automatically like someone. We tried to figure out who the two women were that told Steve about us, but we were drawing blanks. We both said we’d think about it. Steve, we figured it out, but you’ll have to read on for the answer.
After we left Steve, we tried to pick up our pace a bit. Bunny had set a goal of having 10 miles in by noon (a goal we didn’t make, but it was worth not making for all the interactions with people we had today). This is when we started running into large groups of people. We were expecting to see more bodies out today, but it felt like we were spending more time on the side of the trail letting people pass than we were hiking. Occasionally, someone would ask if we were out for the weekend. When we would say, “No, we’ve been out 3 1/2 months,” that usually led to a conversation.
We met one family out with their kids and two dogs. Dogs are usually a guaranteed way to get my attention. The dad asked if we were doing the whole trail. This led to our whole schpeel about starting at Cascade Locks, 3 1/2 months, fires, yada yada yada, finishing tomorrow. His wife was from Germany which led to another conversation about our European adventures in 2017.
They told us of their first backpacking adventure. His girlfriend, now wife, from Germany, had a different idea of camping than he did. She ended up carrying way too much stuff, including a Monopoly Game. Anyone that knows Germans know they follow through when they commit to something. Sometimes this is persistence, sometimes it’s stubbornness. She carried her pack for 8 hours without backing down. Ultimately, they said we were inspiring. We liked them immensely.
They also told us the reason there was so many people out was that there is a popular spot, called Picnic Rock which is only a mile and a half off the road. They asked if we went up it. Side trails and Bunny aren’t a normal thing. Plus, we had just been over Relay Peak yesterday and Sand Harbor Loop the day before. I just don’t think there’s a view of Lake Tahoe that can top either one of those. We’re skipping the remaining views that require side trips. We got to CA 267, which is another route from Truckee to Kings Beach and got a feel for what we were seeing. There were hundreds of cars lining the highway.
This was our 10 mile mark and spot we were going to stop for lunch, but there was just too much activity for us. We decided to push on to get away from the road noise. There was a water cache by a TRT sign and I did grab a liter to be safe. 17 miles is a long way between water sources for us. The people were definitely fewer on this side of the highway.
I saw some people ahead, so I stepped off the trail to let them pass. Bunny and I aren’t wearing our face masks on the trail so we try to maintain social distancing. Most day hikers do have their masks on, but this woman stepped out in the trail and stared at me and was looking around me at Bunny. She then said “we know you. You’re from the M state. We met you 2 weeks ago in Desolation Wilderness.” The pieces all fell into place.
I told Rose and Erin (we didn’t know their names yet) that we were just talking about them today. We had met Steve a few miles back. They immediately remembered Steve. The day we had met them, they got back to their car and had some beers, but they didn’t have a bottle opener. Steve was there and had one. They offered him a beer (something they didn’t do with us) and told him about this crazy couple that quit their jobs and went hiking.
Rose is planning on thru-hiking the TRT next year with her boyfriend. She and Erin are out day hiking and trail running to keep in shape during Covid. I suggested to Rose that she do the TRT CCW. I was planning on mentioning this in the epilogue to this trail, but that’s only a day away, so I’ll do it now.
If you start in Tahoe City, I’d suggest CCW because: the west side of the TRT is shared with the PCT and passes through Desolation Wilderness. If it’s hiking season, you’ll be going the opposite direction of the main flow (think rush hour traffic—which direction moves better). Plus, from this side, you only get teaser views of Lake Tahoe making you want to keep going. But don’t rush by all these beautiful alpine lakes.
Once you get to the East side of the lake, you will enjoy spectacular views of the lake which you’ve been craving. The north side of the lake offers the highest vantage points and is the most difficult hiking which you will have built your legs up for. The final 30 miles back into Tahoe City will offer a variety of views which will be in the direction your heading, so you won’t have to keep looking over your shoulder to see what you’ve missed.
We made it to Watson Lake with enough time to set up camp before it got dark (but we’ll past our normal bedtime of 6). We were afraid we might have difficulty finding a spot sine this is a popular campground. There was only one other camper there, Chris. Chris works for the National Park Service as a trail designer/builder. His permanent base is at Yosemite, but he’s recently been on loan to Bryce where he built a front country ADA compliant trail.
We chatted a bit but it was getting darker. We had to rush to get the tent up, fetch water, clean off, and make supper. A frightening event (for me) happened while making our tea. We ran out of fuel. I tried using my share of the boiling water for the meal and just giving Bunny her cup of tea, hoping she wouldn’t notice I wasn’t having tea. I knew there would be a reckoning, I was just hoping to delay it until morning. It went better than I had hoped for. Bunny only spat in my face and slapped me, but she still let me eat.
EFG