Thurs. Sept. 8            Miles today: 27.4          Total so far: 2,057.4               Sierras Section K

Without Bill’s watch alarm clock, I kept waking up and checking my own watch by headlamp (while staying well-burrowed in my sleeping bag–it was COLD!).  At 5:30 am, the stars were beginning to fade, so I woke Bill and we got up.  It was still a bit dark when we started to hike, but Icould see the trail OK.  We headed down from Peak 8235, crossing varous jeep roads, and got to Richardson Lake, where I’d planned to get water for my platypus.  But when we got there, I didn’t like the looks of the water (Bill said I was being too picky, but I didn’t want to risk it), so we pushed on till I could get some much better water at Miller Creek. 

Then it was basically a climb through the forest on a nice DIRT trail, up to Barker Pass, where we met three people and a dog getting ready to backpack as far as I-80.  Besides them, we met only one other person all day.  After Barker Pass, the PCT really climbs up to the crest, and the views were awesome.  We had lots of opportunities to look at “Big Blue”–Lake Tahoe–in the distance.  We could just make out the sailboats and powerboats.  While we were stopped for our noon break, along came the folks with the dog.  “What happened?” they asked when they saw our sleeping bags spread out on the bushes.  “Did you get wet last night?”  “Nope,” we told them, “we always air our sleeping bags every day.”  Meanwhile, I had to chase the dog away from our food bags.  (That made 2 days in a row of shooing animals–the ground squirrel yesterday, and now a dog!!) 

After that, the PCT began what the guidebook called “a classic crest walk.”  And indeed it was–five miles of walking a bare, narrow, very volcanic Sierra crest, with amazing rock formations (wish I had pics!) and views of Alpine Meadows ski resort far below.  We passed a lot of bright orange “ski boundary” signs.  The only difficulty on this otherwise wonderful trek was the wind–it was blowing very hard and cold.  A lot of clouds were blowing in with it, which worried us.  And, there was NO water.  But in the end, 16 long switchbacks (I counted!) took us down to Five Lakes Creek AND out of the wind.  At the creek crossing, there was a little pool and a whole bunch of trout in the pool.  We could literally have caught them with our bare hands if we wanted to.  The poor trout were frantic when we stood and watched them.  Lucky for them we’re not set up to cook trout!

Then we began the climb up to Granite Chief Mountain, which included a step-across ford of the headwaters of the American River, and on through acres and miles of steep gravelly hillside covered with browning/yellowing/brittle-leaved “mules ears” plants.  I’ve never seen so many mules ears in my entire life!  As we climbed higher, the mules ears were replaced by acres of another plant that had already turned a bright autumn red.  It was very pretty, especially when the sun went lower and shone through the red leaves. Finally we reached the shoulder of Granite Chief, with several trails down to Squaw Valley.  Man, did “Squaw” have a LOT of ski lifts, buildings and fences way out here in the “back country”.  And all of them looked very well-maintained.

With a gorgeous sunset now overhead, we hurried down some sandy switchbacks and camped among the trees near Squaw Creek.  Even though the sunset-lit clouds were lovely, there were an awful lot of them, and looked like they could maybe turn into rain.  We didn’t cowboy camp tonight–we rigged the tarp, and rigged it well in the cold and windy evening.  When I did our mileage math, we cheered–we didn’t think we’d made that many miles today with all the ups & downs!

Wed. Sept 7         Miles today: 21.5        Total so far: 2,030          Sierras Section K

Well, Bill’s watch battery died during the night, so there was no alarm to waken us at 5:20 am.  I had PLANNED to take one last shower and then we’d have a “feast” for breakfast at the nice table in our room at South Shore Inn, before reporting to Ziggy at 6:45 am for our ride back to the PCT.  Instead what we got was a call from Ziggy at 6:30 “Don’t forget–we leave in 15 minutes!”  Bill and I leaped frantically out of bed and it was a WILD scramble to get dressed, throw things in the packs and get out to the car.  So much for a peaceful breakfast and leisurely packup!

Ziggy was ready to go, and cheerfully drove us up to Echo Lake, telling “hiker stories.”  He loves PCT hikers–says we are like a big family.  His very first “hiker experience’ was 6 years ago, when he’d just taken over the motel, and a hiker called him from up at the lake to reserve a room. Ziggy agreed, but was very much taken aback when the hiker showed up bearded, dirty, and smelly, with ratty clothes and pack.  “Oh no, a homeless bum!” was Ziggy’s first reaction.  “What have I done?  But I promised him a room and I should keep my promise.”  A short time later, the hiker “bum” was clean, shaven, friendly and obviously well-educated.  He explained to Ziggy about PCT thruhikers, and Ziggy’s been taking good care of “us hikers” ever since.

At Echo Lake, Ziggy helped Bill get our packs out of his trunk and gave us each a big hug and “God bless you and keep you safe!”  So we blessed him back!  It was a wonderful start for the next part of our hike, even if things were a bit frantic earlier.  Off went Ziggy, and we sat down on a low stone wall to hurriedly eat (brrrr, shiver, shiver–it was a COLD morning!) our big breakfast.  Echo Lake is in a beautiful granite mountain setting, and the water is very clear.  A SOBO came by while we were eating and said “Hi!”  He was headed for Mexico.  When we were done, we walked across the dam and set off on the PCT around the lake, passing one cute cabin after another.  The only way to these cabins is by boat or trail, and each one is unique–fun to look at such a variety of architecture!  But the trail was VERY rough and rocky.  I can see why a lot of people use the water taxi rather than walking this stretch of PCT!  But my new shoes were GREAT–no problem with the rocks hurting my feet now.

Once past Echo Lake, the PCT passes one lake trail junction after another, and from what I could see of those lakes, they were just as pretty, though smaller.  There was even a cute lily pond lake right by the trail.  There are plenty of lakes for lots of backpackers!  Eventually we reached large Lake Aloha which is full of granite islands!  (An island for every hiker?  But how do you swim out with your pack??)  After Aloha, the trail turns east and heads down to another series of lakes.  We ate lunch at Susie Lake, while constantly fending off an incredibly nervy ground squirrel.  During lunch, I finally (duh!) noticed that my camera memory card was almost full.  I should have paid better attention to it–I could have gotten another card in South Lake Tahoe.  Now I’ll only be able to take a few more pictures, and this is such beautiful country!

After Susie Lake came a 2,000 foot climb up to 9,300 foot Dicks Pass.  Bill climbed up here before, a couple of years ago when we were camping at Tahoe.  The views from up top were awesome, well worth the climb and ROUGH trail.  (Yes-rocks, rocks, rocks!)  Then it was down the other side to MORE lovely lakes, where we met a number of dayhikers out from Emerald Bay.  They are all so clean and spiffy and smell strongly of soap and fabric softeners, etc.  I wondr what we smell like to them?  (Phew!)  Then the PCT went down, down, down–boy were we glad to stop for a supper of bagels, cheese and dried fruit!  Our knees were TIIIIIRED.  But we finished the descent to Phipps Creek (Creek?  Hah! More like chain-of-pudles!) and began the climb up to Peak 8235, a mountain that looks like it’s made of a huge pile of granite boulders.  All the trees were twisted and gnarly-looking.  The PCT wound and twisted, too, and with lots of boulders in the trail, it was a bit of an agility challenge!

But we found a nice comfortable campsite near the top, and Bill had fun writing some journal notes with his cool new pen that has a light inside it.  It looks very sci-fi, and he didn’t even need to borrow my headlamp!