Looking Back on Backpacking Trips CJ and I Have Done: Tahoe Rim Trail Day 4

I woke first and made a conscious decision not to wake CJ because I wanted him to sleep, and hopefully fill his emotional bucket as much as possible.  When we finally did crawl out of the tent, Journal was gone. He left no trace he had ever been there.

 

CJ was feeling really bad about the cat.

In law enforcement classes about how to deal with emotional trauma, the psych doctors say the severity of an emotionally traumatic event is connected to the degree the event was expected. An expected event is generally less traumatic than an unexpected event.  So when your 16 year old dog that's been laying on the dog bed immobile for a couple weeks dies, it's not as traumatic as finding out your three year old cat died while you are in the middle of a backpacking trip. However, my medical doctor told me my personal response plan for dealing with traumatic events, which is working out till I can't stand up any longer, is probably the best possible thing I could do because the workout brings sleep, which has the effect of flushing the negative chemicals and resetting my system.

I wish it never happened but I'm glad we were isolated together when it did. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.The closest road was 5 miles away so we got a little workout. Luckily, there's a store at the road,  Echo Lake Chalet... with city food. Hand scooped ice cream. The first thing we did was have a round of ice cream. We were like cowboys riding into town and heading straight for the bar; the first round went down quickly so we had another. After two large doses of super high proof ice cream,  CJ thought he might be able to continue hiking...   maybe. So we went back inside the store and did some shopping to replace the distasteful food we threw away the day before. We bought a couple boxes of cold cereal, a box of good crackers, and a really awesome package of salami and cheese that was set up to go right on crackers. Then, with specific intent to get CJ as far from that road leading home as quickly as possible, I bought two tickets for the boat that takes hikers across the lake and deposits you in Desolation Wilderness. 

When we got on the boat there was a young family on board... mom, dad, and a kid in a Kelty Kid Carrier backpack. If you haven't read the first post of this blog, it's here. CJ loved riding in the Kelty Kid Carrier when he was little and he remembered that. He used to stand at the door of our house and point outside while yelling "Side! Side!" to tell me he wanted to go out-side for a ride in the kid carrier backpack. Seeing that family boosted both our spirits. I told the dad he needed to be careful because those Kid Carriers can be like Pandora's Box; they open the outdoors.

This is Echo Lake. It looks like two lakes but they are connected by a narrow canal.

We stopped soon after we took these photos and ate lunch on that hillside. I wouldn't mention it, except two noteworthy things happened:

• We ate the crackers and salami and cheese we just bought at the store. It was an unbelievable meal. If you don't understand how I could remember it so well years later, you need to do more hiking. It was the best, even after two rounds of ice cream. I have looked for that specific prepackaged combo many times since and never found it. I even went back to that store looking for it and they didn't have it. haha
• Opening the package of salami and cheese, I used a knife I bought in the early 1990's at the Swiss Army factory in Switzerland. Then I laid it down on the ground and forgot to pick it up. That hurt. I'm sure the person who found it had no idea the sentimental value. 

We hiked to the far north end of Lake Aloha and made our camp for the evening in a notch in the rocks. It wasn't a great campsite but we were trying to eek miles out of the day so we didn't have to hike them the following day, which would involve going over Dicks Pass. At that time in our hiking experience, Dicks Pass was a big deal. It's nothing to us now. We do Dicks Pass before we eat our second breakfast now :-). 

We were never really in good spirits this day. We walked quietly. We cooked quietly. We ate quietly. We set up camp quietly. And then we hit the hay quietly.  We hiked 12.6 miles that day, which seemed like a big deal to us at the time.