Day 4 on the Tahoe Rim Trail: Being Forced to Take a Zero Day

• Miles they walked: 0
• No. of naps: 3
• Number of podcasts listened to: 3 (I recommend Passports please! to chat about travel)

After yesterday’s highs, I had a horrible night. I kept sneezing, having to blow my nose, shaking and feeling sick. When morning came I felt terrible. My head was heavy and I just wanted to go home. It was a struggle to get up. I took some Lemsip (a powdered mix from the UK containing paracetamol to which you add boiling water) and we made the call to take the morning off so I could rest and then see if I felt better. I went back to the tent and went back to sleep.

Being forced to take a zero day

As morning came, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hike the ten miles to the next water stop, so we decided to stay at the Marlette Peak campground for the rest of the day. There was a hand pump for water and a toilet, which meant it was better for us to stay there and have a chance to rest and recover, than to pack up and move and risk running out of water.

It was definitely far from ideal to take a zero day so early and since we had a strict deadline where we had to get out of the way whether we finished or not, this put pressure on that. But I wasn’t well enough to walk and that was it.

The camp emptied fairly early and the rest of the day, it was just us and the occasional hiker and cyclist who came to get water. We made a plan for the next few days in terms of resupply and we both had a quiet day. It was good to give my legs a rest and by not walking the blister that had started to form disappeared.

I alternated between taking a nap in the tent and sitting on the picnic bench watching the chipmunks run around. Despite seeing so many, the speed at which they move meant I never managed to capture them on camera – chipmunk photo courtesy of Ben.

There was also intermittent signal at the campground, so I was able to connect for a while. I ended up having to limit this due to my phone’s battery drain, and although we had three power packs between us, we hadn’t planned on spending an entire day sitting.

Views of Marlette Peak Campground from the picnic bench

Find magic trail in a bear box

With plenty of time on his hands, Ben went out for a walk and discovered that someone had left a zip-lock bag of food in one of the bear boxes. I wondered if someone was planning to come back for it, but Ben said it looked more like someone had packed too much and was losing some weight. There was no name or date either. The bag contained a few bags of cereal granola mixed with powdered milk, lots of Clif bars and some electrolyte drinks which helped us a lot as they took the pressure off our food supply since we weren’t walking today.

Time for dinner at camp.

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