Journal Entries

Day 1

Near the end of the day, hiking into camp. Marlette Lake to the right.

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.

Day 1 The trail got off to an interesting start. Actually, interesting from my perspective, and somewhat unsettling for the rest of the family.

Due to significant amounts of snow, we had some difficulty figuring out where the trail actually started. Then once we found the trail, we had a hard time following it. We were climbing over snow drifts up to 6 feet high in some places with no trail markings and no visible footprints to guide our path. Thanks to the GPS of our iPhone, we were able to eventually make our way to the top of the first ridge where the snow cleared and a real path emerged.

Day 1

The first time our whole family has been backpacking since the Appalachian Trail.