Tahoe to Chester – through burn

Leaving the South Tahoe Lake

When Tahoe salts, you enter the desolation desert that sounds quite discouraging. Actually, it is one of the most beautiful miles on the PCT until that moment. Since most people have already sent their bear boats home (which are necessary to camp in the desolation desert), many people rush through it. I loved taking the time to enjoy the landscape and plan to return to a future date.

In this part of the path, you are actually walking on the western side of the Tahoe Rim path, although you do not see much of the lake. As we continue north, we cross the summits of two ski areas: Pacific alpine and palisades.

Truckee to the city of Sierra

While we descended to Donner Pass, the hiking of the crest was incredible. Truckee was probably more busy than normal as it appeared on July 4, but it was nice to get out of the way to resume. Besides, I needed a good coffee.

The city of Sierra was a pleasant surprise after the hustle and bustle of South Lake Tahoe and Truckee. The single -road mountain city was a great starting point for the challenging section to Chester.

The challenging path to Chester

When we left the city of Sierra, we fly beyond the marker of Milla 1200, which meant only 125 miles for the middle point. However, to get there we had to go through some serious burning scars.

Walking through miles and miles of burned forests is mysterious and surreal. We all know about the forest fires of recent years in the west, but seeing first -hand destruction is something else. The destruction scale is huge.

I walked many of the burns sections for myself. The lack of wildlife and the absence of noise (there is no reason for birds, deer, squirrels or anything else to be there) was marked. Some areas were sterile, while other areas showed signs of the ground cover that returned, but every where he looked were dead trees standing like sentries. Your eyes see the trunks of the trees to think about the trees, but without the leaves there is zero shade. By miles and miles and miles.

The other challenge with this section was the surprising amount of vertical feet that walked every day. You wait vertical feet in the mountains when it passes on the passes, but Belden’s climb was 11 miles and 7000 feet of climbing. Everyone seemed surprised by that. The lack of shadow for large parts of the day made it even more challenging.

As we move towards Chester to replenish, we reached a higher point on the PCT, which was the score halfway. He felt great to be at a point where for the first time I was closer to Canada than Mexico. There is still a lot of path, but arriving in the middle was an achievement that was worth celebrating.

While we waited to take Chester, I heard someone mention a forest fire near Etna. It was a forceful reminder that we are entering a challenging part of the summer. After having spent several days walking through dead and ashes trees, the fire season is a real concern in the future for everyone on the PCT.

When I went up to the truck that stopped to take a walk, my thoughts quickly moved away from dead trees and forest fires. The truck had two excited dogs to see me as me to see them.

I also knew that Chester had a great place to get smoothies. Dog time and smoothies, all in the same time: true magic of trails.

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