Journal Entries

Day 2 More snow, more fantastic weather, and more fantastic views.

This camp, considered primitive was quite luxurious by our standards. It had picnic tables, a nice big outhouse, and a water pump (though the pump was broken).

Packs disgorged at camp after a tiring day. The map said we were supposed to have travelled 14 miles. My GPS watch said we did 18 miles. The reality was that it was somewhere in between due to the fits-and-starts we had in the beginning stages where we wandered around trying to figure out where the trail went.

After the long snowy section, we were greeted with a beautiful alpine sage area with fantastic views of Lake Tahoe. This made all of the work it took to get here worthwhile.

Towards the end of the day, after a really long climb, we encountered a large area of snow. The mountain biker travelling the opposite direction to us, whom we had just seen prior to hitting this section, was asking us a lot of questions about the snow conditions further along the trail. Apparently this section wasn't particularly enjoyable for him.

Lichen. This photo doesn't do do justice to the unnaturally bright neon green colour we actually saw here.

For us easterners, hiking long sections of trail with views for much of it is quite a novelty. In New England, we usually have to spend many hours in a green tunnel until we get to a summit before we can see anything. Maybe that is why we were more into "peak bagging" in the past, as that was the only way to really see anything.

Our first views of Lake Tahoe.

There were still some patches of snow at the more exposed, higher elevations, but nothing that wasn't easily manageable. Backpacking through snow in July is a new experience for us. It is kind of reminiscent of spring skiing, where the sun is hot and the snow is firm and slushy. Once you get into it, it can be a lot of fun, especially on the downhills.