9/6/2023
Section: Milepost 1148.3 to 1121.4
Total Trail Miles: 1818/2650
Distance: 28.11 Miles
Moving Time: 11:43 hrs
Elevation Gain: 4,429 ft
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Today, the great, blue lake Tahoe came into sight. I have to say, as a native born Californian, I am a little ashamed to admit that this was my first, conscious sighting of this great, beautiful, blue expanse. None-the-less, we were happy to see it, because it marked another step closer to the core Sierra that we were quickly approaching from the north.
Today’s route continues on the ridge we had gained the day before out of the Donner Ski ranch, headed south. We started by circumnavigating the west side of Anderson Peak, then the east side of Tinker Knob (what a name) from which we began a 3.5 mile, 1200 foot descent into the North Fork of the American River. From the river we climbed back up - another 1200 feet - to the east flank of Granite Chief, crossing under some lifts in the upper reaches of The Palisades ski resort and crossing into the Tahoe National Forest. This precipitated another descent, larger this time, 1500 feet into the Whiskey Creek basin before regaining another ridge on the western reaches of Ward Peak, crossing under some more lifts within the Palisades Ski area boundary. For 5 miles, the route stays at a consistent elevation until Twin Peaks, where it drops down to the North Fork river and climbs back up to 8250’. Here, the day’s stage makes a final, major descent, around Barker Peak, to Miller Creek where we stopped for the night, just short of the Desolation Wilderness.
This morning was a slow start. I know I've said that a few times but our bodies definitely needed a good rechard the night after our first 30+ day… and the Micky’s. We woke around 6:30 and began getting ready for the day. At over 100 days in, we have this down pat. Someone usually makes breakfast while the other person rolls up the tent. We have been living with a broken zipper on my side for over 2 weeks now and I am so looking forward to getting our buddy Josh (and Maddy’s) tent in Placerville here in 2 days while we coordinate the delivery of our waterproof replacement from Big Agnes.
By 7:30, we were up and walking. The days are getting shorter after their pinnacle in late June but it’s still difficult to tell. We walked a bit before crossing behind the west side of Anderson Peak. Couldn’t help but think how nice it might have been to go a few extra miles last night to get to some official campsites on the southwest side, but, whateve’s. The pace was slow. A lot of up-and-down as we made our way along the ridge. The views west and east were gorgeous as we traversed along the highline and at around 8:30 am, the lake came into view. “There it is!'' I exclaimed as we rounded a low hill. “Whoa,'' Amanda said as she looked up. We picked a small, granite shelf to set up the GoPro and snap some pictures. It was SO BLUE! “That’s gorgeous,'' I said and Amanda agreed. We sat and finished off some BBQ Fritos - new favorite - before helping each other get back into our backpacks and carrying on.
At noon, after passing under some ski lifts, we stopped at the Middle Fork of the American River and filtered water. The Sawyer is still holding its own and I have been carefully backashing it in hopes that we don’t have another Northern California incident. We had a quick snack of trail mix and a new bag of Kettle Chips before continuing on down and back up. While I'm glad to be back in the Sierra, the up and down is brutal. It reminds me of my home mountains, the North Cascades, where every trailhead sits at the bottom of a several-thousand foot climb up to some ridge or peak. The concept of flat is lost on most of the west coast. As we passed into another section of the Palisades Ski Resort we ran into, for the third time, the European/mid-West group we had first met crossing into Sequoia National park on Day 50 and then again just south of Ashland on day 86. We stopped and said hi to them as they were snacking. Never having been great conversationalists, they didn’t have much to say but were happy to see us. We spent a little time discussing the last 50 days and exchanging beta before wishing each other good luck and continuing our separate ways.
Shortly after, we went into audiobook mode. I continued my book, Assembling America, and saturated myself in the deep geological history of California. It really is a fantastic state for so many reasons. I found out today that Placerville, the town where we were staying with some friends of friends, was named as such for the many gold deposits found in stream beds in the local rivers throughout the area so, yea, prepared to stun our hosts with that geographically significant fact when we see them tomorrow.
In the afternoon we sped up significantly - probably due to the generally downhill nature of the later stages. This really is a gorgeous trail. In the afternoon, we also started running into the TR (Tahoe Rim) hikers who, in some cases, were setting up their tents at 4 pm. We passed by, a little jealous of the early stop many of them were able to afford on their timeline. As we continued on, the English guy we had last seen in Sierra City passed us and we stopped to chat for a while before he headed on out ahead of us.
We walked on…and on. Eventually, we passed through a parking lot which marked a popular entry into the Desolation Wilderness and talked to an older guy with a very prominent and sunburnt nose for a few minutes. Eventually the sun set, as it is now more regularly doing on us.
We continued on, a little nervous, because Tahoe Lake was supposed to be big black bear country. We have both seen our fair share of bears backpacking but hiking at night always ups the fear factor a bit. Eventually we found our target campsite, on the banks of Miller Creek, and stumbled around until we found a good, flat pad to set-up the tent. We tried to not wake up more than a few of our neighbors as we did so. I ate a pretty terrible Backpacker’s Pantry Sante Fe bowl but an excellent Belchin’ Beaver IPA more than made up for it before I stuffed our minimal remaining food stores into the bear canister and walked it a good 50 yards away before making my way back to the tent. The smell of reefer wafted over to our tent from the nearby neighbors as Amanda and I passed out after another epic Sierra day.
