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| PCT sign a mile from Carson Pass. |
June 19th. I just passed, or crossed
Carson Pass. I did about 4 miles to get there this morning. A little
bit of snow across the elephants back. It wasn't bad at all. I got to
Carson Pass's little ranger-ish station/information center, there
were 3 volunteers that were super nice and another thru-hiker called
"Z". I think they really enjoy thru-hikers because they had
sandwiches and coke and fruit and things like that ready for us. It
was really nice for them. I want to thank them, I did thank them a
bunch and was in and out hopefully pretty quick. Hopefully it was 20
minutes. Ya know I was just telling them what I'm doing and it's time
like that when other people's enthusiasm, ya know not just like "ohh
yeah, cool, good luck" but like "I hope you finish".
That's an amazing thing. It helps keeps me motivated, how about that.
It's one of those - sure I'm doing this for me, but I'd also like to
do it for them kind of thing, if that makes any sense. It's - there's
no way they could ever understand what it's like to do this, but at
the same time, their good intentions go along ways. So I'm about
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| Wild iris a couple miles after Carson Pass, looking south. |
14,
12, whatever miles away from Echo Lake. I'll roll into there,
probably take a shower?...no, definitely take a shower and do some
laundry. I hope to get out of there within an hour, hour and a half
and make it over Dicks Pass into mosquito central tonight. See if I
can pull off a 40 mile day on a resupply. I did the math this
morning, yesterday actually. When I'm all said and done, I'm
averaging 42.9 miles a day, a jump of about 1/3 of a mile a day since
the day prior. So doing big days is still bringing the average up,
which is great, because the record is at 41.2 miles a day, so I'm
ahead of the record by almost 1.7 miles per day, so multiply that out
and by the end of it, I'd be almost 120 miles ahead of the record.
So, 'bravo' me. I just hope to keep going and try and figure out this
weight problem. If it gets easier and easier maybe I won't be burning
as much, especially if I'm coming down in elevation, I know my body
won't necessarily need to use as much to keep me going. So I might
actually stop disappearing. I'll check back in later.
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| Aloha Lake about 8 miles after Echo Lake Resort. |
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| Second view of Lake Tahoe! |
June 19th. Day 26. I got to mile 1116.5
for a total of 44 miles, that's including a resupply which is really
good, to a point, in the data book it's called a 'High Point', it's
about 8 miles passed the summit of Dicks Pass at point 0743798E
4318519N. Yeah, yesterday went pretty well, all things considered.
Got up in the morning, left about 6:05am or 6:10am somewhere in
there. I was close to being on the ridge, I should have... had I
remember better, there was plenty of camping further on, and it would
have been an easy walk that night to get to the good camping out of
the wind. But no matter, I had a great day. I could have made my 50,
but it doesn't matter. Let's see, I got to the ridge, it was nice,
not so windy in the morning, not terribly cold. Good views. There was
some now across the elephants back. Less than 2009, but no a while
lot. It seems that passed the high Sierra, the snow has been similar
to an average year, like 2009, or at least what's remaining. Granted
I am a good 2 weeks or so earlier than I arrived in 2009, so that
probably accounts for the difference. I got to
Carson Pass at about
8:30am I believe. There was another thru-hiker named "Z"
there, there were 3 volunteers that were super nice and just wanted
to give us trail magic. I had fresh fruit, a bear claw, a soda and
they were trying to keep pushing more, but I was 'I gotta go get my
resupply and trying to do this trail fast, blah blah blaa'. So I hung
out there for about 20 minutes, and it was really good. The walk to
Echo Lake was super fast and easy after that. You do a little bit of
a climb, then you're in this big meadow for a while, you do another
little climb and then you're kind of up in the trees and then it's
really just kind of a downhill with a couple little ups. I got my
first view of Lake Tahoe from the top of the first climb off of
Carson Pass. I passed about 7 day/overnight hikers, a boy scout
troop. There was snow throughout there, but it was really quick
going. I got down to Highway 50 at about ohh 1 o'clock, and then went
up to the Berkeley Camp, which they were actually in the process of
remodeling the kitchen and getting it all set up for camp to start
for the summer, which it hadn't yet. When I got there, there were 2
other hikers, 'Focus' and umm..ohh I forget his name. She had
actually worked there so they stopped in to see if there was any
food, because she was like "we used to give food all the time to
thru-hikers" and basically pamper us basically, Their first food
shipment was on
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| Looking back at Dick's Pass at sunset. |
Thursday, and I was like "aww 2 days away!"
So we missed out on a really great meal. O'well. I got my package and
then they were all headed down to Echo Lake, so I huffed it back up
to the trail, because I just kind of dove off to the trail straight
down to the camp. I carried my package for the next half mile on the
trail to Echo Lake, where there were 2 other thru-hikers, so 4 of us
total. One was 'Caveman' and I don't remember the other guy. But hung
out at Echo. Packaging, talking, probably for a good, hour, 1:15.
Went to the store, bought some cheese, a soda, I got a milkshake,
what else did I buy? I forget...I think there was something else. We
just sat outside, packed and chatted and had a good time. The Echo
Lake store wouldn't give me a liter of water because they said they
had a limited spring, and yet they washed their hand every time they
prepared
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| Sunset heading into the Desolation Wilderness. |
food and things. I just needed a liter, but O'well I didn't
actually really need it but it would have been nice to have. I got
stocked up, full of energy, jacked on all kinds of good stuff and
headed out. I made great time next to Echo Lake. I made it to the
1100 mile mark pretty quickly and then wandered my way next to Aloha
lake for a while, through and down and next to the other little
lakes. I huffed it up Dicks Pass, which got me for a second time.
It's a tricky pass, it's a tricky Dick, ya know. You get to a ridge
line, which is the lowest point, and yet the trail keeps going up
because it cliffs out at the low point. So you get to a false pass
and have to go up. I hit the top there, gorgeous sunlight. It was
7:20pm, so the sun was still pretty high, but just starting to turn
golden colored. Stopped at the top, figured out my mileage. I ate
cheese...OHH YEAH, I bought frosting! OoooHhhhh, that's what else I
bought. I had some frosting for another power boost and bombed it
down the hill. The first mile was snow pile after snow pile after
snow pile since it was on the north side in the trees. That was a bit
irritating. But I made it passed and wanted to get more miles, so by
the time it started getting dark, I had already covered 4.5-5 miles.
7:12
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| At the false summit on the Dicks Pass climb...tricked me in 2009 too! |
