27.63 miles
From Trail Camp (Mile 1128, ELEX 7999)
To Donner Pass (Milla 1157, ELEX 7056)
Climb 5181
Descend 6131
Today, my goal was to see if my legs still had enough strength to cover the 25 miles to Donner Pass to meet friends there. I had never walked this area before, but I expected the path to be relatively soft to allow me to cover some land.
I have a couple of friends with cabins in the Donner Pass area that I hoped to meet. But I know them from different places, so they really didn’t know each other. So I spent more time sending/receiving messages in my Garmin to try to coordinate things and did not leave the camp until 7:00 am
Dawn from the way to my camp
My camp in the red light of dawn
Hike right beyond my camp
The first part of today’s walk was along the crest at the top of the Alpine Meadows ski resort. Then he fell into a valley to give the back of Palisades (previously known as Squaw Valley) and climbed to the top of the Chief of Granite.
Tahoe Lake in the distance
Interesting rock formation behind Alpine Meadows Ski Resort
Old PCT marker being slowly devoured by a tree
View from the top of Granite Ghief
Someone had fun with an old sign of PCT
You can be the judge regarding my hikers of hikers
After Palisades, the path once again fell to another valley before climbing 1400 feet to Tinker’s knob. At this point on the walk (the upper part was 19.5 miles), I will only say that Tinker’s knob did not appear as too friendly. The climb began exactly what my legs do not like: steep and rocky. To add to that, I was covered enough of weeds that was often difficult to see the path between the bushes on both sides. A redeeming part was that a breeze was picked up, so it was not so hot. In addition, the upper half of the climb was not so rocky, so it could take smaller steps and only deal with the steep.
Approaching Tinker’s knob
Once the Tinker knob was passed, the path crosses the upper part of a crest beyond Anderson Peak and to Mount Lincoln at the Sugar Bowl ski resort. While it is at the top of the crest, the air had gone from a breeze to a strong wind, threatening to pick me up and take me 15 feet to the edge (not so strong, but still strong enough to affect my balance when a burst exploded). Much of this path had also overcome the Scree. Often, the Scarte pieces had flat surfaces aligned horizontally with the path, so I could step on them and have a good time. But sometimes it was more a rock revolt, in which case I really had to reduce speed.
When the crest fell slowly, it also became softer. Trying not to be too late for my friends, I was trying to walk quickly. When my watch told me that I was often walking at a rate of 17 minutes of mile, I was pleasantly surprised. I made the last pair of hundreds of feet going up to Mount Lincoln and then began to work at Sugar Bowl until the beginning of the path. I turned on the regular tracking with my phone so that they know exactly where I was. At one point, I turned a corner in the west sun and heard someone use my name. One of my friends had gone on the way to meet me. We walked together again.
Interesting rock formation
This reminds pussy legs, but swollen flowers are much larger
Kathleen and Jonathan had never really spoken before. But his cabins are really just around the corner. Jonathan had done many renewal works in his cabin, and Kathleen just started that trip (and, as an architect, he has a good idea of what can be done/cannot be done and what is important). As I own a mountain cabin for about 10 years, it could also occasionally intervene.
Given the logistics of both who need to return to the SF Bay area for work and the lack of communications regarding the teams they wanted to exchange. I am taking a couple of zeros only here around Donner Pass while I hope my USack arrives (I save me a pound and a half on my bear boat).
I am taking advantage of the time (and Internet) to try once again to catch up with these blog posts. I think I could finally handle it.
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