Days 3 and 4 of the Tahoe Rim Trail took me down the east side of Lake Tahoe. Because of the rain shadow (ie the clouds drop most of their rain on the west side of mountains) it has been dry, dry, dry, but in many ways the dryness is beautiful. The ground is mostly exposed crushed granite with beautiful rock outcroppings. I have been getting alternating amazing views of Lake Tahoe to my west, and of the Basin and Range to my east.
Day 3 – Mile 82.7
Today is how hiking should always be! It was my earliest start so far and latest stop, because I took lots of breaks throughout the day. The trail was pretty dry, but there was water often enough that I never needed more than 2.7 liters of water (two 1-liter bottles and a 0.7-liter bottle). I descended for the first several miles, but then faced a big, long climb that ate most of the day. I met two fun hikers on the way up — the first was a lady doing the TRT who was just starting the trail. She and I walked together for a few miles and chatted. The second was a hiker named “Loopy” — he just likes to be out hiking, and he has already done all of the big trails, so now he just makes loops of the TRT. He’s on his fourth loop this season, and plans to do 10 before cold weather sets in. Crazy! He’s a long-time thruhiker, so it was fun to exchange stories about some of the people we’ve both met on trails around the country.
Finally at around 3 I made it to the top of my climb, and to a lake! It was hot and I was ready to swim. I swam for just a minute because the water was cold, but just that made me feel squeaky clean. Then I rehydrated some Taco Bell for lunch. Dehydrated Taco Bell is pretty darn good. The rest of the day was just pleasant miles on a well-graded, mostly downhill trail, until I made it to a beautiful campsite just after dark. For dinner I made tomato orzo and added walnuts again. Yum!
Day 4 – Mile 100.2
Today I had an exciting visitor: Renee! She drove up last night and camped at a trailhead, so I just had a 4 mile hike to meet her! We made coffee and ate breakfast together, and then we headed off down the trail. We hiked through huge meadows with wildflowers galore. It was beautiful. The trail also changed today. It was very dry as I hiked along the east side of the lake, but now we’re on the south end and about to head up the west side, and moisture is much more abundant. The water carries are short and the vegetation is lush and green.
The TRT merged with the PCT about 10 miles into the day (6 for Renee), and the two trails are the same for about 50 miles. We met one PCT thruhiker, “Peanut”, and chatted with him for a while. We introduced ourselves with our PCT trail names from 6 years ago: Blue Man (Renee) and Sausage (me). He is from Germany, so we talked a lot about German long trails like the Westweg.
Toward the end of the day, a wrench was thrown in my plans. I’ve been having shin pain since yesterday, and it got really bad. Once while running I pushed through shin pain and ended up with a stress fracture, and I don’t want to do that again. So, I’m going to head back home with Renee tomorrow, and I’ll finish off the last 70 miles next weekend. For dinner we had vegan mac and cheese. Yum!
