Day 12 on the Tahoe Rim Trail: Trying not to fall

• Miles they walked: 14.0
• Miles covered: 130.6-144.6
• Miles remaining: 30.4
• Number of times you almost fell: 3

This morning I fell asleep a little and didn’t get up until 7:30 in the morning. I could hear Ben and Kelly chatting, I sat on the logs near our tent, but I left them like that. It was a slow camping morning and it was 9.15am when we all had breakfast and packed up camp.

It was a mix of downhill and then uphill to get back to Barker Pass, where Kelly had left his car. The hike wasn’t particularly exciting for this section, but it was nice to have Kelly’s company.

Refueling from a car

We arrived at the Barker Pass trailhead by lunchtime, where I enjoyed the very airy bathrooms. Then we had lunch, re-stocked on the food Kelly had brought in her car, and left her some things we thought we no longer needed.

Thanks to Kelly’s mega charger we were also able to charge our devices and for the first time in a couple of days we had the proper signal again. Making the most of this, we made some plans for the next few days and decided to no longer have a hotel stop for the night in Tahoe City. Instead, we bought Amtrak tickets from Truckee to Davis for Wednesday morning and set an end goal.

Hiker Trio

A day of social trail

Today turned out to be one of our most sociable days on the trail. Although we ran into people every day, they were usually no more than a handful and conversations were often brief or just a quick hello. I expected to see more people, but we were at the end of the peak summer season and any PCT NOBO would have passed through the area by now.

However, today we had a long chat over lunch with someone who was hiking the TRT as a way to test whether to commit to hiking the Continental Divide Trail next year. And we also ran into the trio we had met the day before and learned about the changes to their TRT hike plan.

Goodbye PCT. Until next time?

Kelly left to drive to Tahoe City and then home, while Ben and I continued on our way after a long lunch break. We left Barker Pass and finally reached the point where the PCT and TRT split. This point was marked with the most disappointing wooden post possible, which also nearly fell over.

Goodbye PCT marker post

At this point we had a quick chat with a PCT SOBO couple trying to get through the High Sierra before the snow hit. Even though they were more than halfway through their trek to the Mexican border, I just couldn’t imagine being on the road for months.

Abundant changes of direction

Then there was a very long zigzag descent section from the top. The views of Lake Tahoe returned and we walked through forests and meadows of dead flowers. It was on this stretch where I almost fell three times due to the loose scree and stones on the trail.

Ben on the road

We had been using the FarOut app to get information about water and camping spots. This time the app mentioned a potential location but when we got to the area, it didn’t even seem to exist and we had to keep walking.

We struggled to find a flat camping spot for the night that was also big enough for our tent and I was already very tired, which probably also contributed to my near fall. We finally found a spot near a stream that was ideal for accessing water and we definitely weren’t expecting to camp with water so within reach.

Somewhere along the way

The sun was starting to set, so it was another quick ramen dinner and then time for bed. I had gotten into the habit of listening to a podcast after journaling and before going to sleep. Thanks to NPR’s Planet Money, I learned all about US ZIP codes, the history of Tupperware, and why public bathrooms were lacking in the US during my time on the trail.

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