Day 6, Wednesday, July 7. Echo Summit Trailhead, TM 1563.5–(9.0 miles **)

It’s amazing how energized I am today. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m getting used to the trail again, or, maybe it’s because it’s a TOWN DAY! Tracy is going to meet us around noon and have hamburgers, fries, and Diet Coke’s. Even better, we’ll get to shower and sleep in beds tonight. I’m not sure if I like the hiking, or if I like how luxurious hiking makes everything feel once you get back into a town, even a little backwoods hole like South Lake Tahoe. 

I suppose I need to explain the ** in today’s title. It’s getting a bit out of order, but it needs to be said. I am a purist. I believe in walking every inch of the trail as laid out when we are on said trail. My arms were twisted behind my back today. I was out voted 5-0 once again. Bunny and I hiked the shore along Echo Lake last year when we hiked the TRT. We’ve done the trail. We’re not thru-hiking anymore. That ship sailed when we nearly died in 2019. We are LASHers which mean we just need to hike all of the trail…eventually. The ** means we already hiked this 2.4 mile section of trail and it wasn’t that great last time. It was hot and dry in October. I have no doubt it’d be miserable now. Against all fibers of my being, we took the water taxi across Echo Lake. As a form of punishment, we all wore our face masks the entire trip. We had no choice. This is considered “public transportation.”

As has become the norm, let the weak links get a head start out of camp. Only, today was town day. We flew. It was less than 6 miles to the turn for the water taxi. We looked back but never saw anyone from our party. It was refreshing to see people heading up from Echo Lake. They were struggling going uphill. We were smugly fast walking downhill telling people how beautiful Aloha Lake is as it’s worth the effort. Oh what a joyous morning watching people make the pilgrimage uphill while we were heading to town. It didn’t matter that we smelled like walking human waste…TOWN DAY!

We stopped in a shady corner of the trail and waited for the other 3 to show up. Several passing day hikers asked us questions about how far we were going and how long we had been out. The biggest part of the northbound bubble has passed us by now. If they haven’t, their chances of finishing without flipping begin to diminish. I’m sure there are still some coming towards us who started later and are really flying up the trail. They’ll pass us faster than we pass day hikers. 

Sassy, Bear, and Strider were only about 10 minutes behind us. We headed towards the water taxi as a group just in time to see the boat eave Upper Echo Lake. No problem. All we have to do is call for another one. The number is on a small hut right by the dock. Who’s got signal? No one. No problem. There’s a land line in the hut. All we have to do is call. When we checked out the phone in the hut, we realized, problem. The line has been cut. No Verizon signal. No AT&T signal. Even if we stand on the end of the dock with our phones raised. 

Eventually other people started trickling in. The first couple had T Mobile. T Mobile doesn’t have signal anywhere, we’re screwed. What? T Mobile can get through. It’s like “Rescue from Gilligan’s Island” where the professor finally gets the radio to work. Just sit right back for a 10 minute tour of Echo Lake. 

By the time the boat arrives, there are way more than 20 people waiting. We were sure to have our packs on the dock with the couple that made the call. We weren’t sure how big the boat would be and we HAD to be on the first boat. We had burgers coming to us. It would take 2 boats to get the crowd that had accumulated back to the Chalet. The only drawback with the boat ride is that it’s considered “public transportation” which requires all passengers to wear face masks. Face masks in an open air boat traveling 20 mph across a lake. We can’t even hear anyone speak on the boat, so virus exposure risk is pretty close to 0%, but if it gets us to burgers, put on the damn face masks and let’s get going. 

We knew we had time before Tracy when we arrived, so we let everyone pay at the dock before we left. The ride is actually free. It’s getting off the dock that costs. We paid and then went to find a spot to meet Tracy. On the way, we stopped by the Chalet, which is just a fancy name for “camp store.” The store was very well stocked for the cabin owners on the lake with plenty of options for hikers to perform a resupply without going into town. We bought a couple Diet Cokes to quench our thirst.

The lower parking lot was crowded, so we headed up the hill (and trail) to the next lot where we found a nice shady spot to wait for Tracy. When she arrived, there was a spot she could park while we ate our much anticipated burgers, fries, onion rings, and Diet Cokes. Tracy had even made a special stop to buy Sassy a gluten free hamburger and fries. We were in heaven. 

Back to my purity. I was very strict on the AT about not missing any trail. If there were two entrances to a shelter, I always exited the entrance that I came in. I always hiked north. I never slack-packed…until the AMC (Appalachian Money Club) did me in in New Hampshire. Their refusal to do any AT trail maintenance or improvements led to all of us having knee/hip/leg issues. My only choice was to not hike for a week to allow my knees to recover, or we had to slack-pack (hike without our backpacks). I’m a broken man. It’s a slippery slope. Doing it once makes it all that much easier to do it a second time. 

Someone, not me, came up with the idea of slack-packing out to the highway where Tracy would pick us up and take us to town. It would give Tracy and Strider time to get him resupplied and cleaned up for the next portion of the TRT. It did sound appealing to walk 3 miles without a pack. Screw my purity I just rode a water taxi in place of 2.4 miles of trail. Chariot, carry my pack. I’m a trail slut. Can we catch a bus to Yosemite? Where does it end?

Don’t ever repeat this. It was very relaxing and enjoyable to walk a few miles without my pack. Don’t let Bunny know I said that. Tell her it was hell. My soul was in agony. I’ll never do it again. We covered 3 miles in right at an hour. I didn’t know we could walk that fast without sweating. 

We had told Tracy it would take us an hour and a half. We had time to kill. We sat on the road and waited for her. We saw her coming down the road and we got up…as she passed us up and headed down a steep curve right past us. I remember this road. It’s next to impossible to turn around. I panicked. A few minutes later, Tracy was back. She found a wide spot and a gap in traffic at just the right moment to make a U-turn. We were back on track for showers and beds. Life is grand!

Tracy drove us right to theMellow Mountain Hostel in South Lake Tahoe. Today, Tracy earned her wings and the title of “Trail Angel.” She brought us hamburgers. She slack packed us. She drove us right to our hostel. All before 4 which is check in time. Ring the bells for Tracy. 

We quickly checked in and dropped our bags before we performed the next most important task of the day. It had already been over 3 hours since we ate. We had hiked sauntered for 3 miles. We had had slight panic attacks when we saw our packs pass us. We had made it to a town. In other words, it was time to eat. We headed to a pizza place Bunny and I remembered from last year and ordered sodas, salads, and pizza (gluten free for Sassy, of course). I drank 6 glasses of Sprite Zero before the salad arrived. Locust in a field had nothing on what we did to our salads. I had at least another 6 glasses before we left. I never once peed. 

Now that we were fed, we headed back for showers. Since I’m the youngest, I was relegated to laundry duty while I waited for the last shower slot (it’s not always fun to be the baby of the group). The only drawback to the hostel was no AC. We did have itty bitty fans on each of our bunks, but they didn’t put out enough air to cool us down. About 1 in the morning, Bear broke down. He jumped off his top bunk and started fanning the door to draw in cool night air. It actually worked. We were able to finally sleep on the mattresses we had dreamt about for the last 4 nights. Is this enough for Bear to become an Angel? I think not. He does snore. 

EFG