Looking Back on Backpacking Trips CJ and I have Done: Tahoe Rim Trail Day 2
The sun was up when we awoke.
The campsite was an embarrassing mess by our current standards. Because of the impending darkness when we arrived the evening before, we hadn't hung our food in a tree to prevent theft by bears like we promised the forest service when we obtained our permit. Instead, we brought our food bags in the tent with us hoping our stinky bodies would thwart theft by varmints. I'm ashamed to admit I left my pack laying beside the tent with some sort of food wrappers in it. The mini-bears attacked. Hungry rodents had gotten into my pack and gone to town in there. Luckily, they only chewed up the wrappers. I would have been really upset if they had chewed holes in my vintage Dana Design Terraplane pack, which is so incredibly cool it's actually still made 22 years later... I was backpacker-cool before being backpacker-cool was cool.
Link to the modern version in case you want one. ;-)
I hadn't done a trip like this in 15 years.... since before CJ was born. I was way outside my comfort zone. In those 15 years, I had gotten soft even though I tried really hard not to. I was nervous as we ate our oatmeal breakfast. Out-of-my-comfort-zone-nervous. There was no reason for it.
After breaking our camp down, we got on trail about 9am. I thought that was fine considering it was our first day ever doing a multi-camp trip. But 9am is nearly mid-day compared to how we roll now. After a few hours of hiking under a brutally heavy pack, we arrived at the highest point on our journey. We were just under Freel Peak at about 10,500' elevation. We only needed to turn left and scamper up about a mile of trail to stand atop the highest peak in the Tahoe region but I didn't have it in me. I needed more time to acclimate after our journey from sea level in Oregon to Tahoe in a matter of hours.
The campsite was an embarrassing mess by our current standards. Because of the impending darkness when we arrived the evening before, we hadn't hung our food in a tree to prevent theft by bears like we promised the forest service when we obtained our permit. Instead, we brought our food bags in the tent with us hoping our stinky bodies would thwart theft by varmints. I'm ashamed to admit I left my pack laying beside the tent with some sort of food wrappers in it. The mini-bears attacked. Hungry rodents had gotten into my pack and gone to town in there. Luckily, they only chewed up the wrappers. I would have been really upset if they had chewed holes in my vintage Dana Design Terraplane pack, which is so incredibly cool it's actually still made 22 years later... I was backpacker-cool before being backpacker-cool was cool.
Link to the modern version in case you want one. ;-)
I hadn't done a trip like this in 15 years.... since before CJ was born. I was way outside my comfort zone. In those 15 years, I had gotten soft even though I tried really hard not to. I was nervous as we ate our oatmeal breakfast. Out-of-my-comfort-zone-nervous. There was no reason for it.
After breaking our camp down, we got on trail about 9am. I thought that was fine considering it was our first day ever doing a multi-camp trip. But 9am is nearly mid-day compared to how we roll now. After a few hours of hiking under a brutally heavy pack, we arrived at the highest point on our journey. We were just under Freel Peak at about 10,500' elevation. We only needed to turn left and scamper up about a mile of trail to stand atop the highest peak in the Tahoe region but I didn't have it in me. I needed more time to acclimate after our journey from sea level in Oregon to Tahoe in a matter of hours.
We took these photos at the point where I decided we were not trying to bag Freel Peak. This is the south end of the lake, where it swings from Nevada into California, You can sort of see what the whole east side is like.... sandy like a desert:
Those became our backpacking clothes for several years. Get used to seeing them in the photos haha... backpacking is a stinky endeavor but I'm big on swimming whenever possible. We swim in our clothes as an atmospheric mitigation measure.
Sometimes when I get out of a lake, I ask my hiking partners if they like my new shirt. I crack myself up.
It was Saturday and we were really not that far from civilization. We saw a huge number of people on the trail, mostly in the form of mountain bikers who were farther from their comfort zone than I was. I made CJ walk behind me because I was worried he would get hit by one as they careened out of control downhill.
On trails, the right-of-way hierarchy is established as:
- Equestrians
- Hikers
- Mountain bikers
Equestrians ALWAYS have the right of way. Mountain bikers yield to everyone else. They never do though. We shared trail with at least twenty mountain bikers and only one yielded the right of way to us the entire day. I consider myself a multi sport person. I enjoy mountain biking, but I was left with a bad taste in my mouth that day.
The plan for camping that evening was to find a spot in Big Meadow campground near highway 89 south of Meyers. But all the people we saw that day reminded me it was Saturday... in the summer. Saturday nights in public campgrounds around Tahoe are not really conducive to getting good sleep that starts at sundown and ends just before sunrise. You may as well be trying to sleep on the floor in a bar with a live band that goes until everyone finally passes out for the night. When we crossed a stream about a mile before we reached Big Meadow public campground, I called an early halt to the day's forward progress. We made a bush camp right there and lounged in the stream cleaning our legs and our feet.
Even if it hadn't been a Saturday, I prefer sleeping in the woods over sleeping in a campground. Campgrounds can be cesspools. The woods are always pristine.
There were a couple memorable things about that campsite. First, we tried to hang our food from a tree and somehow, in the process, got my rope completely stuck in that tree, never to be used again. Luckily, we each had a rope so we used CJ's for the rest of the trip. Be Prepared. Second, we left our food bags beside our packs in our campsite while we went to the creek to clean up. We learned a lesson when another mountain biker came through with an unleashed dog. The dog went straight to our food bags and tried to rip us off. I saw it happening and got verbally aggressive. The guy got his dog out of our food and jammed. The third thing that happened there... we thought we would be hard core and cowboy camp. That means no tent, just sleeping in our sleeping bags on a ground tarp and pad under the stars. Being next to a creek, we paid for that idea. We got shredded by mosquitoes. I think that was the last time CJ and I cowboy camped. And we have spent many many nights in the woods since then :-).
The plan for camping that evening was to find a spot in Big Meadow campground near highway 89 south of Meyers. But all the people we saw that day reminded me it was Saturday... in the summer. Saturday nights in public campgrounds around Tahoe are not really conducive to getting good sleep that starts at sundown and ends just before sunrise. You may as well be trying to sleep on the floor in a bar with a live band that goes until everyone finally passes out for the night. When we crossed a stream about a mile before we reached Big Meadow public campground, I called an early halt to the day's forward progress. We made a bush camp right there and lounged in the stream cleaning our legs and our feet.
Even if it hadn't been a Saturday, I prefer sleeping in the woods over sleeping in a campground. Campgrounds can be cesspools. The woods are always pristine.
There were a couple memorable things about that campsite. First, we tried to hang our food from a tree and somehow, in the process, got my rope completely stuck in that tree, never to be used again. Luckily, we each had a rope so we used CJ's for the rest of the trip. Be Prepared. Second, we left our food bags beside our packs in our campsite while we went to the creek to clean up. We learned a lesson when another mountain biker came through with an unleashed dog. The dog went straight to our food bags and tried to rip us off. I saw it happening and got verbally aggressive. The guy got his dog out of our food and jammed. The third thing that happened there... we thought we would be hard core and cowboy camp. That means no tent, just sleeping in our sleeping bags on a ground tarp and pad under the stars. Being next to a creek, we paid for that idea. We got shredded by mosquitoes. I think that was the last time CJ and I cowboy camped. And we have spent many many nights in the woods since then :-).
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