Hike On

For the first time, we woke and got rolling with pretty decent efficiency. We had been hiking for a couple hours when we came to this sign near Barker Pass west of Lake Tahoe. It clearly proved we had in fact walked a full 20 miles the day before. When I planned this hike, I thought our days would 10 to 12 miles. Not 20 miles!  When I took this next picture, I didn't know we would have another epic distance day and land in a hotel in Tahoe City before dark. Late in the afternoon, CHP helicopter came over head and seemed to be following us. They continued to follow us for more than an hour. I concluded they must be using us for training. Then we came upon a group of boy scouts out of the bay area. They had been on the first day of an intended five day backpacking trip out of Tahoe City when one of them stepped wrong and wrecked his ankle. The CHP helicopter was looking for them and followed us right to them. They probably saw CJ and I and thought we might be part of...

Consistent with my experience of exhausting myself to bring good sleep after a stressful event, CJ slept incredibly hard. We got hit by a lightning storm during the night.  At the crest of the Sierra where we were, there was no delay between the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder. It woke me like an earthquake. KaaBooom! Actually, it woke me like a Marine Corps drill instructor. >WAKE UP.... WAKE UP..... WAKE UP RIGHT FREAKIN' NOW BOY!< Just like when a Marine Corps Drill Instructor wakes an entire platoon, it felt like lightning was striking close enough to transmit through the ground into our bodies. There wasn't really anything to do except wait it out; there was certainly no where to run. We weren't under a tree so that was good. But we were a long way from the nearest tree so that was bad. I thought about what was happening, and pulled CJ onto his sleeping pad in an effort to ensure there was no part of him in contact with the ground. To this day, I...

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 ...

It was chilly when we awoke. 5am let us know we were at 7000' elevation. We stayed in our sleeping bags for awhile. We were still beginners.   We passed through the public campground at Big Meadow about 8am. Not a creature was stirring.  There is one thing I appreciate about passing through a public campground when I'm backpacking: trash cans! We happily jettisoned the trash we had accumulated.  We also took the opportunity to ditch some of the food CJ was never going to eat. I had shopped too much like a dad. I realized it after we got on trail and CJ turned his nose up at some of the things I bought.  Our packs got a little bit lighter right there. We kept the important food though.   I couldn't eat it... too sweet... but CJ loved it.  After dumping our trash, we crossed Highway 89 and climbed a few miles of marshy mosquito infested trail to the intersection where the Tahoe Rim Trail meets the Pacific Crest Trail at Meiss Meadows, an ...

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 befo...

The Tahoe Rim Trail is a loop around Lake Tahoe that follows the approximate mountain rim of the Tahoe basin at about 8000' elevation, plus or minus 2000' here and there. If you hike the full circle, total distance is 165 miles. Through those miles, the character of the trail changes significantly. The west side, where pacific storms deliver abundant rain and snow, is heavily forested with dense trees and many lakes and streams. The east side reminds you you're nearly in Nevada. Its like a desert at 8000' elevat ion. There are long stretches without any water sources. Less water, fewer trees, and the resulting open trail gives a feeling the sun is pounding on you.... I had hiked the trail's north/south lines on both sides of the lake earlier in life so I knew the differences but I had never hiked the sections of trail that swing east/west around the ends of the lake. In 2013, I figured out how to pull eight days together between a family trip to Oregon and ...