Day 90

Trail miles: 22.4

Total: 1153.8

I knew it was going to be a long day on my own when everyone had their sights set on free beer at Donner Ski Ranch. The first 6 miles were not so bad, but we had a couple steep hills to get up and over. By the time I was at the top of the first hill, my feet hurt so bad they had a pulse. It was a different pain than yesterday. It was both of the bottoms of my feet and they were just so sore from walking on them for so long. At the bottom of the hill, I stopped to ice them in the creek. It helped for a couple miles, but started hurting again. I stopped for lunch a mile from the top of the hill to eat my cheese and pepperoni wrap and to rest my feet a little more. The sad thing is I wanted to get off my feet to rest them, but my butthole hurt so bad from chaffing that I wasn’t comfortable sitting either. So I ended up in a weird sideways lay trying to finish my Propel. I should mention that I stopped in a beautiful patch of wildflowers. These fields seem to be popping up more often. On the downhill, I finally gave in and took some Motrin for the pain. I’m not sure if it helped because I still have to stop like every 1-2 miles the rest of the way. I was worried about the snow on the decent, and not having microspikes worried me even more, but there were only about 3 patches and very easy to walk across. There’s a lot of ultra runners training on trail that just run across it, so that makes me more comfortable. Anyway, I made it to the highway and then to camp about 0.4 miles past. We all set up camp before we left for Donner Ski Ranch! They gave us stamps with the date on them on our permits which I thought was such a cool souvenir. I better not lose this permit. The bartender gave me free stickers and a magnet! It honestly just felt so nice to sit down. I was hiking non stop today and maybe had 45 min of rest without my pack on for the whole 20 miles. The night ended with saying goodbye to Tal and Seabear who have to pick the best sections on the trail before their visa is up in 8 weeks. And of course Washington is highest on the list. We hope to see them at trail days. They were so kind and funny, and we will miss them!!

Day 89

Trail miles: 21.1

Total: 1131.4

I guess the sadness I was feeling yesterday manifested into real sickness today. Or at least what I thought was a cold. I was slow to get ready and slow to walk, but I felt better after a few miles. I fell behind all morning, partly because I called my mom when I found service to wish her a Happy Birthday! It was definitely worth it. My foot has been hurting me and it’s getting worse. It’s the outside of my left food. Raechel thinks it’s my shoes that are hurting me, because it doesn’t hurt when I wear my crocs. I’ll pull a Cheryl Strayed and wear those until the next REI. It might be because the ridges make the trail slant sideways. Or because my feet are squished in a shoe that’s too narrow. Raechel showed me how to lace my shoes differently as to not put pressure on the outside of my foot. Her and Krista wear there’s that way. We had lunch at a trailhead with pit toilets and we got trail magic from two different people! One girl I was too late for, but Brad saved me a bagel with cream cheese which I am grateful for. Then a couple pulled up and handed out beers and left. He was very friendly and asked our trail names, but it was funny that he was only there to give us beers and leave. I packed mine away for dinner. We climbed up a couple miles to a ridge line overlooking Lake Tahoe. It was stunning! I lost a lot the group again taking pictures and videos. We are camped on the ridge line so it’s somewhat windy and the ground in slanted, but not too bad. At least we get to look forward to more 360 views in the morning! I have to pack out my dinner because I couldn’t eat it. It was Korean food which means it was way too spicy for me. I couldn’t even convince Brad or Raechel to eat the rest of it. Raechel said there was no flavor, only peppers. The bear hang would have gone better if I hadn’t got the line caught on every twig on the ground in the 100 foot radius around the tree. Spare Change had to put his cigarette down to help me. It was a mess. Only for the first dude to walk down the trail and tell me what was wrong with it. I went through too much effort to move it. And he wanted me to hang it over the trail? That’s not happening. I think there is a bee stuck in my vestibule.

Day 88

Trail miles: 19.5

Total: 1110.3

It was so hard to wake up this morning. I packed up the last of my Sierra City box for Tammy to send and tossed my old shoes in the garbage. We were at Echo Lake before 8:00am, but we waiting for Big Owl and Donna to drop off Spare Change, Tal, and Sea bear so we could say our goodbyes to Donna and Big Owl. Big Owl hopes join us further up the trail, but she will definitely be back next year if not. The terrain today was no different than normal, but I just felt like a rock sinking to the bottom of the ocean. It doesn’t feel long in the grand scheme of things, but doing this over and over again for almost 3 months now is getting exhausting. And we aren’t even halfway. I hope things change, but for now I’ll have to push through this slump. Maybe I’m getting what is know as the Nor Cal blues. Or is it too early for that? I struggled to make it to the top of Dicks Pass, which wasn’t even that long or hard (get your mind out of the gutter). The view was worth the climb for sure. The snow on the descent was slushy and easy to do without spikes. It didn’t least very long either. Krista and I took would walk around the snow when we could. Did I mention it was storming on and off today? And when I say on and off, it was either hailing and thundering or sunshine and hot. No in between. My umbrella held up nicely while I was hiking, but I was worried I just turned myself into a walking lightning rod. I made it to camp right as it started raining again and I threw everything into my tent. It’s pretty difficult to blow up my sleeping pad when I had a full tent. Tal and Seabear came in late, because they made a wrong turn at a junction. I think they had to hike an extra 2-3 miles. Those junctions can be pretty poorly marked, so I always check Guthook. It stopped raining after a bit and I got my bear hang up. Everyone except Brad is doing the best hang; Brad is keeping his bear canister I think forever. 

Day 87

 Trail miles: 0

Total: 1090.8

Town days have become all about building back up the food reserves. And if you want to do it right, have Brads mom Tammy and their friend Wayne come visit! I couldn’t be more grateful for the generosity they provided with putting us up for 4 nights and cooking for us. And Tammy drove us around town getting food for resupply, shipping packages, and printing stuff at the library. I contacted the PCTA about my lost permit and they enabled my account to print my permit again! So I am legal again on trail. I stashed two separate permits in different compartments so I’ll have a backup this time. I am sending a box from Tahoe to Sierra City, which is where we will be in 5 days. There’s nothing there so I send bars from Tahoe, and my mom is sending me dinners and other supplies I am running low on. And thank you Terri, my hiking friend from home, for cooking and sending me dehydrated meals! I look forward to them! Wayne and Tammy cooked us twice baked potatoes, steak, and corn on the cob for dinner. Then we watched the Secrets of Dumbledore movie which was not worth staying up late for.

Day 86

Trail miles: 0

Total: 1090.8

We met the whole gang and everyone’s extended family for lunch at the McP's Taphouse Grill. There was about 25 people there. The place was perfect to accommodate that many people though. I ate a very average fish and chips. Spare Change and I lost Tammy and Brad at cornhole, but to be fair it was really close. I went back to the BnB and took a bath. We went to the free concert series on the beach of Lake Tahoe which turned out to be really fun! The band was good and we enjoyed a nice sunset over the water. There were vendors and food trucks. We had to take the electric scooters to the casino which were so fun and surprising fast, but a pain to get started and park. I had to download the app, add a card to Apple Pay, and go through the tutorial. Took like 10 minutes. And then I kept parking it in a no parking zone so it kept yelling at me, even though I would try next to multiple other scooters. Krista bought us all Cinnamon Toast Crunch shots! We had to verify Tal and Seabear’s license with the head of security, because the bartender wouldn’t accept a license in another language. It ended up working out, though, and he gave us the thumbs up and wished us luck in our night. It didn’t help though, because anyone who played at the casino lost money. We would have gone to the arcade, but it closed at 10:00pm. I spent my money on Fatburger purely for nostalgia reasons.

Day 85

Trail miles: 0

Total: 1090.8

Woke up to find a whole mens outfit in the bottom of my bedsheets that I didn’t find the night before. First off, that’s so gross. And second, Krista decided the pants might be worth washing and keeping. Wayne made the best pancakes I’ve ever had and the secret he says is cooking them on olive oil, so I will have to try that out sometime. We headed to town and I spent 30 minutes waiting in line at the AT&T store just for them to tell me I had to file and insurance claim for my phone online. I met Krista and Raechel for poke after stopping at the coffee shop for a Maple crunch latte. The gear store was actually super nice which means I didn’t need to go to REI for shoes. The worked heated up the inserts so they could form to my feet before I left the store. There were some hikers that came in who I could smell from 15 feet away and the cashier started burning incense. I bought a town shirt that I will be able to wear and send home. For dinner, we went to the Ten Crows BBQ restaurant. The food was good, but for some reason I got indigestion so bad that I had to have Raechel bike to the grocery store to bring me back antacids. The only thing thing that helped though was going back to lay down on my bed. I watched Stranger Things to make me feel better too. I was sad about missing out on the bar, but I still apparently had a better night than Raechel and Brad. They rented bikes for a day to ride around town with and to get back to the BnB at the end of the night. They rode back well after sunset and Google Maps took them on a single track trail through the woods. They said it took them an hour and a half to ride the 6 miles back. There was a four by four they had to ride over and they almost had to cross a creek before they realized they made a wrong turn. Krista took an Uber home and waited for them on the couch for an hour before she started getting worried. They decided to return the bikes after that trip. And I will have to start carrying antacids in my fanny pack.

Day 84

Trail miles: 11.4

Total: 1090.8

I woke up before 5:00am and got up right away. No time is wasted on town day. We had one big hill and it was all downhill from there! We ran into some maintenance workers and I panicked a little when I first saw them because I thought they might check for my permit that I lost. But they were super nice and gave me some directions to the parking lot side trail. We showed up just in time as Big Owl and Donna showed up, but they only had room for three people, so Krista, Lifeguard, and me had to hitch. We didn’t even make it to the road to stick our thumbs up when a man pulled in offering a ride. We saw James sitting on the road and fit him into the car too. We were reunited with the gang and headed for Mexican food. It was the worst. Then I got the largest ice cream sandwich ever and I disgraced the thru hiking community with how I struggled to finish it. I watched some girl across from me eat it with no problems in half the time I did. Embarrassing. Spare Change’s mom was in Wheel of Fortune and called to tell him she won 50,000! We bought some food from the grocery store for the time we will be in town and Ubered to the BnB. Raechel and Krista made pasta for dinner. Tammy (Brads mom) and Wayne arrived just in time for Pumpkin Pie!

Day 83

Trail miles: 18.9

Total: 1079.4

I was in a good mood this morning and it was probably the espresso shot in the cliff bar I ate but I didn’t care. I felt great. Something about the weather and the views helped. Today we had to go over Carson Pass which I didn’t even know until Brad mentioned it. We stopped planning around the passes so I stopped paying attention. There were two traverses before the peak of the pass that required microspikes. The first was kind of scary because the steps weren’t really carved in. Brad went first and did a good job of using his heal to dig them in better. I should have given him more space when I started because I caught up to him and standing up there just waiting does not help the nerves. I try to get across as quickly as possible while still trying to keep my footing. I had to shorten my trekking pole on the uphill side to help strike it into the snow since the snow was higher. I’m glad I kept the microspikes and I’m glad I convinced Krista to keep hers. The second patch was far less scary. I think the first was was worse because it was longer. The second one flattened out halfway so it was easy to walk normal. Anyway, all four of us made it across just fine and there was no snow on the decent. 

At the visitor’s center, there was trail magic! Like actual hot dog cooking trail magic. Two days in a row! I ate so much as lunch that I got a cramp going up the approach to Carson Pass, but that didn’t stop me from immediately accepting a hot dog and Coke. And watermelon and cookies. His trail name was Savior and he had hiked the PCT in 2020. He told us stories of his trip and how the Pandemic changed things. He was really nice to talk to. We didn’t make it too much farther after that, but it’s ok because we have less that 12 miles into town tomorrow. Also Krista and Lifeguard have been having to dig cat holes like every 30 minutes today. Last night they had the same dinner. And I have bought that meal too, but never ate it. I’m wondering if I should toss it. Probably not a good idea to hiker box it if it’s going to give someone digestive problems.

Apparently Spare Change, Big Owl, and Raechel are having the best time in Tahoe! Buffets, bars, Top Gun. I can’t wait to see them tomorrow!